


The Chains that You Refuse

by OddityBoddity



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Asgard, COMPLETE!, Canon? What Canon?, Clucky - Freeform, Friends to Lovers, HOH!Clint, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, bucky barnes is a shit, clint barton is a lying liar, farmer!Clint, mentions of animal death, two assholes get into a lot of trouble, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-03 15:24:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 21,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2855756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddityBoddity/pseuds/OddityBoddity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That time Bucky and Clint broke into Asgard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This used to be called Barton Farm, because it was going to be about chickens. Now it's called The Chains That You Refuse because it's not about chickens, it's about other things.
> 
> The title is lifted from _The Chains that You Refuse_ a short story by Elizabeth Bear (which I heartily recommend to you all) and which I understand comes originally from a line in Richard Thompson's song _Beeswing_.

Normally Clint is not a morning person.

But that’s because Bed-Stuy is full of distractions, and noise, and ambient light, and he’s a god damned fucking Avenger which means sometimes people want to kill him, so he sleeps light, and he sleeps with his ears on, which means he doesn’t get a lot of sleep. So normally, Clint Barton is not a morning person.

But out here, Clint’s a morning person. He’s a morning person because it’s just him and Lucky and the old farm house, set back from the road, deep into the quarter-section that’s the first piece of land the Barton family ever owned. It’s in the middle of nowhere and it’s quiet and, except for that time about ten years ago a genuine lion escaped from a circus and wound up in the area, it’s safe. He takes his ears off and he sleeps like a baby from sun down to sun up. The one and only time Lucky’s woken him in the middle of the night it was because a family of raccoons were raiding the kibble, which he should have known better than to leave out over night anyway.

Barton Farm is a quiet place. There’s 160 acres of arable land, of which the Singh family rent out 100 for their corn crop, and the other sixty has got the house, the barn, the little woodland where he and Barney spent a lot of time when the house wasn’t safe, and a creek right at the property line. For as long as he can remember, probably for as long as anybody can remember, this little piece of land has been a haven. So after the Battle of New York, yeah, it’s where he came. He went down the road to the D’Souza’s and put in with their poultry order, called in the chimney sweep, took the storm boards off the windows, and talked over the fence with Gurmail about maybe looking at putting peas in next year. He fell into the rhythm of quiet nights and busy days, of re-roofing the old place, and patching the barn doors where they're battered on the windward side, and even missed Nat’s texts about the business that went down with the Winter Soldier.

_Could really have used an extra pair of eyes_ , she’d texted after she’d brought him up to speed.

_You guys did okay,_ he’d answered. It was easier to say that true thing than the other true things; that he hadn’t slept much since the business with Loki. That he’d heard Selvig had gone insane and was arrested running around Stonehenge with no clothes on. That every time a stray thought popped into his mind or a stay word popped out of his mouth, he wondered. Wondered if he was cracking up. If he was still in charge. In charge of his brain, his body, his wants. Wondered if the reality he was tuning in today was the right one. Or if he was going to wake up in a brig again, with Nat looking down at him with that little crease between her eyebrows. The one that means, _What you've done might break you._  


At times like that it's good to be able to get up on the ladder and finish painting the trim on the loft doors of the barn, or go on over to the D’Souza’s or the Singh’s and shoot the shit about corn prices and combine harvesters. It's good to have a hundred peeping, yellow chicks that needed food and water and heat and security and somebody to keep the foxes away. It's good to have a big, shaggy dog that gets burrs in his coat and needed a wash before coming in at the end of the day. It's good to have apple trees needing pruning, a flock of geese with a habit of getting into the garden, and a house needing painting.

So Clint is _not happy_ to find a stranger sleeping in his barn when he goes out to start painting in the wee hours of a Wednesday morning. He's even less pleased to discover the person isn't just a drifter, he's got a cybernetic arm that sort of gives him away. He's extra unhappy to realize he said, _aw, fuck_ out loud. And now the guy's waking up.

The Winter Soldier sits up like Frankenstein's monster, stiff in the middle, facing forward, almost in sit-up position. He looks at Clint, and even in the low light Clint can see he's gaunt and greasy and dead-eyed like he hasn't eaten or slept or fed himself right in weeks. Clint sees his throat bob when he swallows. The Winter Soldier blinks like his eyelids are sticky.

“They were in my head for a long time,” he says. He says it very softly, and frowns when he does, like this statement is confusing even to him. He looks past Clint and then at him again. He chews on nothing for a moment. “I didn't know what was real."

Clint swallows.  


“They did it to you too,” the Winter Soldier says. “Different handler, same mission.”

Clint’s eyes stray to the metal arm. Overlapping plates. Perfect workings. Not even Stark, not even Department X, not even in the space age. Too advanced, all of it.

He feels cold. He feels sick. _Different handler, same mission._ Should have known.  


“What do you want?” Clint asks. It sounds petulant and unkind even to him, but he came out here to get away from this, from the horror that happened to his mind. To feel safe. He glares at the Winter Soldier, thinks of Natasha with her fancy new scar, of Steve in a hospital bed, in a _god damned hospital bed_. “What did you come here for?”

The Winter Soldier blinks a few times, rapidly. He looks down, like maybe he’s forgotten, then at Clint again. “Help,” he says.

Clint says it again.

_Aw, fuck._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sweet delicious extra time has allowed me to finish this installment early!

“So what do I call you?” Clint asks.

The Winter Soldier looks steadily at him.

“I’m not calling you “the Winter Soldier”, I don’t care how cool it sounds. Gimme a name.” There’s a pause. A long pause. And if Clint had ever, maybe, in the back of his mind (possibly) entertained the thought of calling up the cavalry the minute he could get to a phone, that thought vanishes. He knows what it is to reach for your own identity and find nothing but emptiness. “Any name,” he says in a quieter voice. “Doesn’t have to be yours. Just need something to call you that doesn’t take all day.”

Some of the tight lines around the Winter Soldier’s eyes and mouth ease up a little. “James,” he says.

“Okay. Clint,” Clint says back. He doesn’t offer his hand and the Wi— _James_ doesn’t offer his either. “You hungry?”

Again, a pause. James chews on air the way he did before. The longer he doesn’t speak, the more the tightness comes back to his eyes. His breathing’s getting shallow and fast.

“If you had a mission could you operate?” Clint asks.

Eyes close. Relief, maybe. Maybe shame. Hard to say. “No.”

“Okay. Okay.” Clint doesn’t mean to let it sound in his voice, but it does. Distress. It’s like someone’s tightened a noose around his neck. He remembers the piercing clarity of the mission, the comfortable cage of certainty. He remembers coming back into himself and suddenly losing all that, falling into the mire of himself, needs, wants, uncertainty, hope, fear, probability. And for him it was days, that’s all. And when he came back, Nat had been there to tell him the score, and give him the chance to punch back, make the amends he could, helped him make sure he could leave the city on his own terms. No such comfort for this poor asshole. Just enemies everywhere. He sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “Okay, well, let’s get you functioning. Come on. I’ll make you something to eat and we’ll talk.”

James gets to his feet. He doesn’t have anything. Not a blanket, not a bag. Nothing. Clint wonders about the last time he had a change of clothes or a shower, or a proper meal. Probably been a while, judging by the way his mud-smeared jeans hang off him. He wonders what it’s like to be in a body that’s probably eating itself and not know what to do about it. Maybe that was how he was. He doesn’t remember and damn well doesn’t want to. That was the whole point of being out here. To be busy. Start a new life. Forget.

“You like eggs?” Clint asks.

James nods.

“Good,” Clint says. “Because we’ve got a fuck-ton of them.”

 

He leaves the painting supplies and the ladder propped up against the barn and starts back to the house. He hears James following with a slow and heavy tread, and figures he’s exhausted, even if maybe he can’t tell that for himself just yet. Lucky comes crashing out of the wood lot and barreling toward them and then stops and stands barking. “Hey, hey _,_ ” Clint yells. “Come here, you dummy, it’s fine.” He glances at James, ready to explain, _Lucky, my dog_ , and stares. James is standing in a shooting stance, a .357 in his hand.

“Are you _kidding?_ ” Clint yells. “Give me that.”

He grabs the gun and James lets it go.

“Who points a gun at a damned dog?” he shouts.

James nods, as if it was a yes or no question. “Your dog,” he says.

“Yeah,” Clint answers. James looks back at him. Eyes reddened and underlined with sleeplessness. His mouth open just a bit, breathing a little hard. Clint blows out his cheeks. “I guess you’re not too fucked up to be scared, are you?”

James’ mouth twitches into a faint smile. “No.”

“I’m confiscating this,” Clint says. He gives James the side-eye. “What else you got?” When James doesn’t seem to understand he says, “If you have any other weapons I want you to give them to me now.”

Slowly, James reaches up and takes a knife from a sheath hidden in the back of his jacket and puts it into Clint’s outstretched hand. And then a second Derringer from the holster under his arm. Then a garrotte from an interior coat pocket. A small folding knife. A paper envelope about the size of a salt packet. A hand grenade. A knife with an ice-pick-fine blade from the inside seam of his pant leg. Another of the same from his boot. Last, and with what Clint thinks is reluctance, James sets down a Glock.

“Okay,” Clint says. He looks at the mound of ordinance in his hands. “Okay. And that’s it, right?”

“Yes,” James says. Then his eyes go wide. “Oh,” he says, like he’s just remembered. He reaches into the pocket of his jeans and then puts a set of brass knuckles in Clint’s overflowing hands. “That’s everything,” he says.

“Brass knuckles,” Clint says.

James nods.

“What do you need brass knuckles for? No. Never mind, I don’t want to know.” He jerks his chin at the weapons in his hands. “Official Barton Farm Rules: No weapons. Be nice to my dog. Be nice to the neighbours. Try to act like a real boy. Got it?”

James nods again. The smile’s gone. Clint hates himself for a minute.

“Sorry, that was shitty," he mutters. "Come on. Make up with Lucky.”

He whistles and Lucky comes over, head down and tail wagging in a sort of uncertain way. James doesn’t seem to know what to do so he stands still while Lucky circles him and sticks his scarred-up muzzle in some pretty private locations, and then spends a little extra time snuffling at James’ metal hand. Eventually Lucky stops and looks up at James with his one good eye, tipping his head as if he’s trying to get a better look. Then, apparently satisfied, Lucky comes over to Clint, snuffles at him, and starts toward the house. James watches him go, then he looks at Clint, and his eyes aren’t dead any more, they’re sharp. Clint feels like James might be seeing him, actually seeing him, for the first time.

“What?” Clint asks.

“Stray?”

“Not exactly,” he answers. He frowns at James again. "What do you need brass knuckles for?"

James shrugs. "The other hand."

It takes him a minute, then Clint looks back at him. "That was a joke."

The faint smile comes back. "Yeah," James says. "Turns out I'm a hell of a funny guy."


	3. Chapter 3

 

There’s a gun safe in the living room, and it’s big enough for the arsenal the Winter Soldier brought down to Barton Farm. Just.

Clint puts everything in while James watches and says nothing. Then he goes to the kitchen, tells James to sit, and gets to making coffee in the old percolator. While that’s brewing he starts melting butter in the skillets and puts bread under the broiler to toast. James seats himself in the best chair in the kitchen. Clint’s chair. The one with a view of the door, and the window above the sink, the one with the back to the wall and none of the cupboards. He sits with both hands on the scratched formica-topped table, like a child. Or, Clint thinks as he takes yesterday’s eggs out of the dish and starts cracking them on the counter, like he’s been trained to keep his hands in sight whenever he’s not working.

Lucky lies down under the table in prime mooching position, and waits for scraps.

“How’d you find me?” Clint asks, throwing the egg shells into the compost bin.

“Land title office,” James answers.

“How’d you _find out_ about me?”

“TV. Then wikipedia.”

Clint grunts. “Plenty of people have had that fucker in their head. You coulda picked Selvig. He’s been on TV too. Why’d you pick me?”

Silence. Clint puts the lid on the pan and turns around.

“Is it because I know Steve?” he asks.

James looks at him. His eyes are bigger than they ought to be, eyebrows coming together above his eyes. His jaw moves. Fighting something. Clint can’t look at it. He checks the toast instead.

“I don’t know him,” James says at last.

Clint shrugs. “Yeah, sure you don’t.” He flips the toast. Should probably use a fork. Doesn’t. Scorches his fingers. “Sure.”

“I don’t know him,” James says again. 

Clint thinks about that, about what that means. It's a lie, obviously. James went from tired to tense in the time it took Clint to say the name, and the answer he's giving is ridiculous. He wishes Nat was here. He thinks about her wonderful, particular, valuable skill set. Distract, confuse, overwhelm, extract. He’s not as clever as she is, but he’s seen it done a lot. Might as well give it a try.

“So you want coffee or what?” he asks, and he turns around to get the pot. “How’d you take it anyway? I’ve got milk or cream, and there’s sugar and there’s honey.”

“I… Cream,” James says after a beat of silence. “And sugar.”

“You probably need calories. Two teaspoons of sugar okay?”

“Uh. Yeah. Okay.”

 _Just like stealing a wallet or phone,_ Nat told him once. _So much sensory input the mark never even notices._

He’s seen her do it lots of times. Once to get an ID badge. Bumped into the guy, knocked the badge to the ground. Dropped her purse and her phone and the guy, smiling, had passed it all back to her, his badge included. Took him almost thirty minutes to notice it was missing, too.

Clint grins over his shoulder at James. “What’s it take to run that arm anyway?”

James blinks. “I-”

“Like, calories. How many calories? I mean per day.”

“Thirty five hundred.”

“Total?”

“Additional. When operational.”

“Jesus.” _Bang_ , the lid falling onto the cast iron pan. James jumps where he sits. “What’s your resting rate?”

“Uh. Twenty five hundred.”

“So you resting right now or operational?” _Bang_ , the pan under the broiler. “Ow, fucking hot. Pass me the-”

James starts to get up.

“No, they’re here. Never mind.”

James sits down. Clint grabs the over mitts and pulls out the toast. “So? Operational or resting?”

“Operational.”

“Asgardian.”

“Yeah.”

“You got proof?” He doesn’t let James answer. “Because, that's gonna piss people off. And, no offence man, but the grocery bill is gonna be outta control and I mean, the business I work for? It kinda went belly up. So money’s tight." He throws the oven mitts and they arc perfectly into the sink. Lucky gets up, maybe hoping there's going to be more throwing in the near future. “Course, I could tell Steve his old friend was here and ask him to pony up-”

“I told you I don’t know-”

“You want eggs, right? I hope so ‘cause I’m making some. Got a hundred chickens a couple months ago. One thing we got is eggs. Or could ask Thor. Since you think that tech on your arm is partly his problem." He pauses. "Or Stark. Make him pay admission to see it.”

Nothing.

“Not sure Thor’d know what to do. Stark’d want to take it apart."

Still nothing. Interesting.

"Steve’d be better. Steve’d totally stump up grocery money.”

He clanks two ceramic mugs together getting them off the rack and pours out the coffee, then sets the percolator down with a bang. 

“Yeah, Steve’d be the guy to call.” The loud, erratic _clank, clank, clank_ of the spoon going round and round. “He’d probably mail it though. Or worse _,_ and, _hah_ , man, it’d be just like him, Steve’d show up at the door with cash and two bags of groceries. I bet he’d bring good groceries. Hey, pass me my phone-”

“ _No!_ ”

Clint turns.

James is on his feet. He’s staring straight ahead, breathing hard, a bead of sweat cutting a track from temple to stubbled jaw, hands flat on the table. He closes his eyes. “No,” he says again.

Clint takes the mugs over to the table. Sets them down.

“Coffee,” Clint says. “Cream, two spoons of sugar. Sit down.” He pushes the coffee toward James.

James sits. He looks at Clint, looks him in the eye, and for a second Clint thinks he’s going to beg for something. God knows what. Maybe mercy.

Clint knows they fought, him and Natasha. He had bruises all around his midsection and nothing on his head or neck or near his heart. She’d had wounded hands and wary eyes. Hearing the words _it wasn't your fault_ didn't make a dent in the shame.

“Drink your coffee,” Clint says.

James takes the cup in both hands and sips. It’s just obedience at first, and then, then Clint can see the tension start to come out of him. His jaw softens up a bit, then his shoulders. He slumps like he’s exhausted. Clint goes back to the stove and looks under the lids. For a minute the only sound is the sizzle of the pans.

“You remember how you like your eggs?” Clint asks.

“Over easy,” James whispers. “I remember everything.”

Clint looks down at the pan. He can’t shake the feeling that James is waiting for something. “Shitty,” he says.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets daaaark, so daaaaaark. You might want to line up a unicorn chaser before you read this one.

He over-did the toast. Could be worse. Clint flops his last fried egg onto the last piece of toast and bites into it. James is looking at him.

“You never seen a guy put his egg on his toast before?” Clint asks, mouth full.

“You don’t say his name,” James says.

Clint frowns and chews. “Who’s name? Steve? Steve Steve Steve.”

James’ mouth twitches into that smile again. “They’re not magic,” he says. “They can’t hear you when you say their name.” He pauses, then, “Zola,” James says. “Schmidt. Lukin. Pierce.”

Clint swallows the food. “Loki,” he says, like he doesn’t care. Like it hasn’t taken all the spit out of his mouth and turned his stomach.

James inclines his head a little at Clint. “Loki.”

Clint pushes his plate away. Three eggs was probably too much anyway. He’s going to give himself a heart attack.

James flexes his metal hand. “You know what they call the one they had in Asgard?" he asks. "The one that’s made of this stuff?” 

Clint shakes his head.

“The Destroyer.”

“Winter Soldier’s better,” Clint says.

James laughs. He finishes the eggs and mops up the yolk with the crust of his toast. “I want my brass knuckles back,” he says, chewing.

Clint considers it. He shrugs. “Not like you can do any more damage with them than you can without,” he says, heaving himself to his feet. He goes into the living room and opens the safe. “What’s up with you and Steve, anyway?” he calls.

He hears the soft sound of the chair being pushed back, of footsteps on the floorboards. He finds the brass knuckles and closes the safe, heads into the kitchen again. James is standing at the sink with the dirty dishes.

“Think fast,” Clint says and tosses the brass knuckles over. James catches them out of the air without bothering to turn. “Dunno what wikipedia said about me,” Clint says, coming over to the sink, “but I’m kind of an asshole. So, you not answering my question isn’t going to make me stop asking.”

“Does it matter?”

“The guy’s looking for you.”

James turns on the water and puts the stopper in the sink.

“He won’t come here,” James says.

Clint passes him the dish soap. “What makes you say that?”

“Because he thinks you’d tell him if I was here.”

“But you think I won’t.”

James shrugs. “You wouldn’t be hiding out here if you wanted company.”

“You’re an asshole, James.”

“Should fit right in, then.”

Clint snorts. He gets the dish towel from the stove handle. James washes and he dries.

 

*

 

He sends James to shower. Then he sits in the kitchen with Lucky’s head in his lap and his phone in his hand for a few minutes, then texts Unlisted, which is Nat’s number. _Did you send me a present?_

_No,_ she texts back. _Do you like it?_

He chews his bottom lip. _Doesn’t fit,_ he answers.

_You could send it back._

_Maybe._

He takes off the passcode lock, puts the phone down on the table _,_ and takes Lucky out when he goes to feed the chickens. He gives James twenty minutes to look through his phone, read the messages, and do whatever other sneaking he’s going to want to do. When he comes back the shower’s still running, the phone is right where he left it, but there’s a drip of water on the table top. He turns on his phone. The contact list is still open, still at Rogers, Steve. The picture happens to be Lucky wearing the cowl.

Clint turns off the phone and pockets it. Then he goes to Barney’s old bedroom and rummages around till he finds a few things. A pair of jeans that will probably be too big in the waist, but long enough in the leg, a t-shirt that’ll probably stretch enough in the shoulders, and a hoodie with a cracked vinyl logo on the front. He goes down the hall to the bathroom door and knocks. The shower stops.

“I hope you didn’t call the Motherland,” he shouts through the door. “I don’t have a long distance plan.”

The door pops open a crack. A little steam slips out. James is standing just inside, a towel around his waist, wet hair sticking to his face and neck. There’s a colossal, bubbling, twisting scar at the suture of his metal arm and his shoulder. Clint can’t stop staring. He forgets what he was going to say, which sucks because it was a good pun. The scar is huge, knotted and ugly. Scar tissue over scar tissue over scar tissue. The arm isn’t a sheath, it’s the whole damn arm.

“Didn’t call anybody,” James answers. “Just read your texts. Who’s ‘Unlisted’?”

“Uh… a friend,” he mumbles.

Silence. Then, “What?” James says.

Clint shakes his head. He clenches his hands on the clothes in his arms, because if he doesn’t they’re going to start shaking. They didn’t just fuck around in his head, they changed his body too. When Clint can’t sleep, in the dark, sometimes he worries that maybe somebody’s still in his head. But James, shit, his whole body’s been altered. They changed it. They’re still inside of him, and they’re never coming out. Every time he moves, every time he looks at himself he’ll remember what they did to him. Sometimes Clint forgets. For James, it’s never going away.

“What?” James snaps.

“I thought it was… tech over top. Like a sleeve. Like Stark’s suit.”

“It’s not.”

“Jesus.” He doesn’t ask _did it hurt? Does it hurt now? Did you know what they were doing to you?_ because those questions are so stupid they’re cruel. Instead he shoves Barney’s things into James’ hands so he’ll stop staring at the ruin of his shoulder. “Clean stuff,” he says. “Pants and shirt and hoodie. Should probably fit. You’re on your own for underwear, though.”

“Won’t be the first time I’ve gone commando,” James says and closes the door in Clint’s face.

 

*

 

Clint does the minimum chores. Mostly he sets up Barney’s old room so it’s liveable again, takes the dog and the truck into town and gets some more groceries, checks in on the chickens and mucks out. James mostly sleeps. He sleeps on the old green couch in the living room first, and then falls into Barney’s old bed so hard the springs complain. Clint figures it’s been days, maybe weeks, maybe more since he slept right. Probably the first time since DC. Maybe before.

Clint pussy-foots around the place. He gives up trying to decide if he should order the five hundred pound bag of pea-seed or the two-fifty. He’s got a feeling he’s not going to get the chance to plant it anyway.

That night he doesn’t take his ears off when he goes to bed. It’s uncomfortable. It’s loud. He hardly gets any sleep at all. Somewhere in the borderlands of sleep and wakefulness his head is full of green eyes set in a pale face, of the comfortable cage of certainty. Of knowing, and still choosing the mission over everything else. Accepting domination, choosing it, preferring it. The sensation of catching a handful of Natasha’s hair to try to get a clear shot at her jugular. Knowing Loki would have preferred if he drowned her, since she fears it so much, and being disappointed in himself for not managing to arrange it.

He gets up while the sky’s still velveteen and dark, and gets through his first pot of coffee before dawn.

 


	5. Interlude

Steve gets the call around dawn and answers with a slurred _muhyeahhello?_

"You alone?" It’s Clint’s voice, very quiet.

Steve jolts awake. Clint’s been gone for weeks. Steve didn’t ask about it, just assumed he was on some kind of mission. But calling him at this hour, and with a voice so quiet. Something must be wrong. “Yeah,” Steve says, sitting up and scrubbing at his face with his hands. “Yeah, it’s safe.”

"Good," Clint says. "You know about my family’s place?"

Steve frowns into his palm. "No."

"Family farm. Ask Nat. Listen… uh, that… that guy you’re looking for?"  Steve’s heart stops in his chest. His breath too. He whispers, “You found him."

"More like he found me," Clint says.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah.”

Steve exhales a pent up breath and gets to his feet. “I’m on my way.”

He hears Clint laugh. “Listen, I don’t think he wants me to tell anybody, and, no offense, but he made it pretty clear that didn’t want you to know. But Nat said you and Sam were still looking.”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I…" he shakes his head at the wall. "Why didn’t he-?”

“Look, I don’t know and I ain’t gonna ask.”

Steve sinks back down onto the bed. Clint sounds tired. Exhausted.

“You okay?”

“On my feet,” Clint says. Steve doesn’t ask. He doesn’t ask because you don’t, you _don’t_ tear the scabs off other people’s wounds. But he doesn’t think Barton ever made eye contact with him after New York. He hasn’t asked Natasha about it. It didn't seem right to be talking about him behind his back. Steve rubs at his forehead.

“Is there anything you need?”

There’s a long, quiet moment. “Money,” Clint says after a while, and he says it like he’s fighting to say the word, _mmmmmoney_. “But only if you can do it quiet. I’m broke. He needs clothes and food and shit. And I know you’re gonna be shocked when I tell you my last paycheck from SHIELD never came through.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Steve promises. “Anything else?”

“No. I’ll keep you updated once a day. If I don’t check in I’m dead, then you can come up and do whatever you need to do. Deal?"

"Okay," Steve agrees. “Don’t…” he doesn’t know what to say. _Don’t get killed?_ _Don’t do something stupid to make up for what happened before?_ Pretty rich coming out of the mouth of Steven Grant Rogers, liar, lab-rat, and wrecker-of-aircraft. “Don’t forget.”

“Won’t.”

Clint hangs up. Steve stares at his phone a long time. It’s 4:32. It’s too early to call Sam and Natasha. He does it anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this story should be called "two assholes get into trouble" but then, I feel like that's what SO MANY fics should be called.  
> Anyway, the title is likely gonna change. I don't know what it's going to be, but Barton Farm ain't gonna cut it for much longer.

So he’s got a guest, but that doesn’t mean the chickens don’t need to be fed and let out into the run, or the shingles on the roof don’t need replacing. And now he’s got an extra set of hands, things might actually be a little easier. After breakfast, Clint puts James to work mucking out the coop, and Clint goes up the ladder to start on the roof. He ought to rope up, he knows he ought to rope up. But it’s hard to care about anything after everything so he climbs up and starts pushing back the tarpaulin that covers the part of the roof that needs patching. It’s bright blue. Could’ve picked a better colour. There’s an orange one wrapped around the old three-wheel ATV that’s parked in the back of the barn. Could’ve used that one. But no. Had to use the blue one. The wind makes the fabric roll like the surface of a lake.

He used it because it was fine. He used it because it didn’t matter. He used it because he was starting over again and it didn’t make a damn bit of difference if the tarp was blue or orange, except that the orange one is old and ratty and the blue one’s in better shape. It made sense to use the blue one.

And now he sick, puking over the side of the building. Has to go back down the ladder to rinse his mouth out with the garden hose. He takes a minute to let his head rest against the siding of the house and then goes back up the ladder and gets to work.

He gets thinking.

About that arm. About what it means.

The thing about Clint is he goes to ground and licks his wounds and people think he forgets. Well, he’s had a lot of concussions and sometimes he does forget stuff, but never what counts. Ask Barney. Ask his enemies. Hell, ask his friends, and they’ll all say that Clint Barton is a champion grudge-nurser. And there’s a face he never did get to punch, a score he’d still really like to settle.

In the afternoon, when the sun’s chased all the shadows away and James is coming across the yard back to the house, he leans over the edge of the roof. “Hey,” he shouts, “get up here.”

James comes up the ladder and sits for a minute, taking in the roofing tiles and the tarp.

“Need another hammer,” he says.

“No, just pass me the tiles,” Clint tells him. He holds out his hand for one and starts hammering it into place. “Been thinking.”

James doesn’t speak. He sits down by the stack of tiles and watches Clint work.

“About what you said. About that arm.”

James doesn’t talk. Clint works. For a while there’s only the _bang bang bang_ of the hammer.

“Asgardian tech, right?”

“Yeah.”

_Bang bang bang_

“You hear about Thor in New Mexico?”

“No.”

_Bang bang bang._

“First time I ever saw him was there. Thought he was some roid-head but turns out, well, you know.” He pauses and looks over at James. “You do know, right?”

James frowns.

“He’s from Asgard. He’s the, uh, not-so-shitty son.”

James’ frown gets deeper. “They’re brothers?”

“Yeah.” Clint turns back to the roof. “Anyway, big fight. Made a mess of a little town. That Destroyer you were talking about? Thor busted it up pretty good. Pass me another tile, would you?”

James shifts, passes a tile. Rough texture in Clint’s hand. He’s losing his bow callus. It’s been weeks since he even shot a target.

“So, Thor destroyed the, heh, Destroyer. But, it came to earth and it worked here, so I guess it’s proof of concept.”

James says nothing.

“And I was thinking about that. So, I’m a pair of eyes. You’re a hand. Selvig has a hell of a mind.” He wants to find a way around it but he can’t so he makes himself say the name. “Loki’s a mouth.”

“One arm, a pair of eyes, and a big brain, and Loki's mouth just makes for an asshole,” James says quietly. “It doesn’t make a Destroyer.”

_Bang bang bang._

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, It’s half a Destroyer. So the question is-”

“Where are the others?”

Clint looks at James again. James shrugs. “Yeah,” James says. “That’s what I was thinking too.” He looks down at the roof and then at Clint again. His mouth moves emptily. Clint’s not a patient guy. Besides, he's pretty sure he knows.

“You want to save them.”

James nods.

“So you need to find them.”

James nods again. Clint frowns.

“You got an idea where to start looking?”

James shakes his head. “Only one person even knows how many of us there are,” he says.

Clint closes his eyes. Loki's narrow, pale face face bobs right up like it's just been waiting under the surface. “He’s in Asgard. In whatever kind of jail they have there.” There’s a _lot_ of comfort in that. “You’ll never get to him."

Clint turns back and hammers in the last nail, then reaches for a another tile but his hand stays empty. He looks over at James. James is looking back at him, not speaking, waiting. Clint sits back on his heels, sweat runs down his back. “Tell me again why you picked me?”

“I can run a mission and I can hunt a target,” James says. He shrugs. "But I don't have intel."

Clint sighs and sets his hammer down. He wipes his sweaty forehead with his arm and looks at the sky. “You need a way in and a way out.” He glares. “A pair of eyes and a big brain. Acting experience wouldn't hurt either.”

James nods.

“No,” Clint says. “I’m not doing this.”

James shrugs. The wind comes up and tugs at their clothes and their hair. They’re quiet for a while. In the next field over he can see the members Singh family converging on the farm house for lunch.

“I’m not,” Clint says again, like James is arguing with him. “I’ve got a dog. I’ve got a hundred chickens. I’m getting pea-seed next week. I…” he puts the hammer down. “SHIELD’s gone and I’m not an Avenger. I played at being a hero for a bit but I fucked it up and I'm not doing it again. I’m not who you want. I'm just a god damned chicken farmer who used to be a carnie.”

“Okay,” James says. His voice is neutral but Clint feels like it's a rebuke. He takes a tile from the stack and passes it to Clint. Clint takes it from him and hammers it into place.


	7. Chapter 7

Clint could use a good night’s sleep, so he takes off his hearing aids that night. He’s not worried James is going to kill him, he’d’ve done something before now. And since there’s somebody else in the house who can hear it if there’s trouble in the coop, or the smoke detector goes off, he's not worried about missing something important. He lies there in the dark, thinking for a while. It doesn't take long for him to slip between thinking and dreaming. 

He remembers. They let him see the security footage of Loki's arrival at the Tesseract. He watched the whole thing afterward, a few times. It plays in his dream like it did that first time. And, just like that first time, he’s surprised to see that Loki’s mouth didn’t move after he said, _You have heart,_ because Clint remembers, distinctly, that soft voice saying, _You crave order._ _You have always craved order. And I can give it to you._ And he remembers giving in.

He does crave order. The chaos of his childhood, the uncertain waters of alcohol and anger, the accident that left him and Barney unmoored. Parents suddenly gone. Orphanages, first the Catholic one, then the state one, then foster homes, no rhyme or reason. Some good, some bad, some awful. The circus. Moving from place to place. People coming and going. Friends turning into enemies. Desperation. Clint Barton: Terrible judge of character. Clint Barton: Terrible judge of circumstance. _Clinton Francis Barton, have you anything to say for yourself before this judgement is rendered?_

In and out of concrete cells with heavy iron doors. And then, out of nowhere, a SHIELD recruitment officer. Intake. Commuted sentence. Phil Coulson. Usefulness. Trust. Natasha. Getting by. _Friends._ Order, certainty, Christ, order and certainty like a balm for the kid who still couldn’t understand why he missed the dad who beat him up. And now…

People suddenly gone.

Friends who are enemies.

The world blowing apart at the seams and his dad’s voice booming in his head, “Can’t trust _nothing_. Can’t depend on _no_ body. Esssept yourself. You hear me boys? There ain’t nobody you can rely on esssept _yourself_.”

_You crave order._

_You have always craved order._

_And I can give it to you._

He can’t breathe. Something’s got him by the shoulders, something’s shaking him to pieces.

_You have heart._

 

He wakes up. There’s a face looming over his face. Long dark hair, white skin, eyes bright and glittering. _Loki_. Clint clocks him; he lurches up and back, and Clint follows him down, using gravity and momentum to put power behind the second punch. He only realizes it’s James after the punch lands.

James’ head goes back with a _crack_ on the floor boards. Blood, black in the low light, blossoms from his nose. He gets his metal hand up and catches Clint’s fist.

“Aw, fuck,” Clint shouts, sitting up.

James’ mouth moves but Clint can’t hear it or see enough to read, not in this light. He reaches up to the beside table and fumbles for his hearing aids. When he turns back, James is sitting up, daubing at his nose with the hem of his shirt, and Lucky’s come in to see what all the fuss is about. 

“Sorry,” Clint says. “Sorry. Shit. Did I break it?”

James shakes his head just a little. “Don’t think so,” he says.

“Come on. Bathroom.” He pulls James to his feet and leads him into the bathroom and flicks on the light. He looks at James. There’s blood on his mouth and chin, and on his shirt, but it’s not gushing. He soaks a face cloth and James takes it from him and starts to clean himself up. Clint drops down on the edge of the tub, suddenly worn out. He rubs at his face and when he looks up he sees James watching him in the mirror.

“Feel better?” James asks.

“Yeah,” Clint answers. “How’s your nose?”

“You know? It’s bleeding.”

Clint laughs.

James rinses the cloth in the sink and has a look at himself again, then looks at the shirt he’s wearing and pulls it over his head and drops it on the floor. Clint throws it into the tub and runs a little cold water over the blood. It starts to lift out. He looks back at James. And maybe now’s not the best time, but the fact is, James is a good looking man, in spite of the scars.

“Gonna live?” Clint asks, to give him an excuse to be looking at James’ naked back.

“Probably,” James answers. He looks at Clint in the mirror again. “Sorry I brought it up,” he says.

Clint shakes his head. “It’s always there.”

James nods. “You remember everything too, huh?”

“I don’t think…” He stops. Nat tried to get him to go to a SHIELD therapist afterward. He couldn’t. Made it as far as the waiting room, and then bailed out. “No,” Clint says. “There’s lots I don’t remember.”

“Uh huh,” James says. “Sounded like it.”

Clint looks sharply at him, because he knows from the security tapes that Loki didn't say much, and he knows from the security tapes that he didn't say _anything_. Which is the only good part of the whole thing. Because it's bad enough he thought the things he thought, he doesn't need to be saying shit like that too. “What did I say?” he asks.

“I dunno. I don’t remember.” James tries to look up his own nose in the mirror. “Funny how it comes and goes.”

Clint’s stomach clenches. He looks down at his hands. 

James turns and leans against the sink. Out of the corner of his eye, Clint can see him folding the face cloth in half, and then in half again. “They fucked me up. For knowing who he was," James says quietly.

Clint looks up again. “Fucked you up?”

James nods. "They… it was…" he clears his throat. "Electricity."

Clint winces. James shrugs.

"After that I... I knew better than to know who he was. I…” he pauses. “You know what happened in DC?”

Clint nods. “Sort of. I heard parts.”

“I shot him. A couple times. I almost beat him to death. Because I was scared. Of the electricity. I still don't know why I stopped." He swallows noisily. "What kind of a man does that make me? If I'll do that? Choose it. Maybe even now, maybe even though Hydra are gone." He frowns at the face cloth. "That's why I said I didn't know him. And the fact is, he doesn't know me. I know he's looking. If I get my way he's never gonna find me. If he does he's just gonna be disappointed."

Clint sighs. Since the bathroom's turned into a confessional, he might as well take a turn. "I work with this woman, a Russian, actually, who came in a couple years ago. I brought her in. She... Doesn’t trust people, but she trusts me. She tried to stop me, when I was… out of it. So I tried to kill her. And I remember being so angry that it was going to be quick and tidy. I told Loki everything about her. Everything. And I knew what he wanted me to do to her.” He looks down at the yellowed lino floor. 

He expects a noise of pity. He expects James to say something about how awful, how sick it is. Instead James says, “You kill her?" 

Clint laughs softly. He looks up at James. "She's a better scrapper than me.”

James snorts.

Clint looks down again. "She doesn’t trust people, but she trusted me,” he says. “I knew how to hurt her and I tried…” He shrugs. “But she’s been keeping me up to date on everything. She’s the one who told me about DC. They don’t let go. I’m starting to think they don’t ever let go.”

“Maybe not.” James folds the face cloth over one more time, then shakes it out. "Pain in the ass," he says. He puts the cloth down. "Does it help?” he asks, looking at Clint. “Pretending you don't remember?”

For a minute Clint can’t say anything. Then, “No,” he admits. They’re quiet for a while. Lucky comes in and sits down on the bath mat and Clint scratches him behind the ear. “No, it doesn’t help. But I know what might.”

James laughs softly. "One heart-to-heart and now you're in?"

“Save some people? Maybe be a good man again?" Clint sits back against the tile. "Tell me this isn't about Steve," he says.

"Just like it's not about your lady friend?"

"Yeah."

James smiles and shrugs. "Well," he says, "there _is_ a face I really wanna punch."

Clint laughs. He smiles at Lucky and scratches him behind both ears. Lucky closes his good eye, all bliss. “Yeah, me too."

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One smiling cow. For Fivedeadweasles.

It takes Clint a day to find somebody who can look after Lucky and the chickens, and to catch up with Gurmail and tell him not to wait for Clint before he puts in his order for seed. Gurmail crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the rear fender of the big old tractor. “You never sit still, do you?” he asks.

“Guess not,” Clint says. “You want that last sixty acres you can have it, fold it into the rental agreement.”

Gurmail laughs. “I think I’ve got as much as I can handle. But thanks.” They shake hands and Gurmail waves goodbye. “Take care,” he calls, “And look in when you come back. Sarah worries about you. And Sadie likes your dog.”

Clint waves back. He gets into his truck and trundles down the big, pitted driveway, out onto the oil soaked road that winds along the back of all the farms in this section. _Must be nice_ , he thinks, turning over what Gurmail said. _Must be nice to know when to stop._

He pulls over in the little dip between the Singh farm and Barton Farm and texts Steve: _We’re good here_. He sits for a bit afterward. Steve texts him back but he doesn’t bother to read it. Instead, he texts Unlisted.

_As long as I’m alive I make you vulnerable. I’m sorry._

He sends it before he can think twice about it, then turns off his phone and throws it behind the seat with his bow and his arrows, and starts driving again.

James is waiting for him at the gate. Clint pulls over. He glances at the house with its unfinished roof, and the barn with the worn out windward doors and thinks about all the work he’s leaving for another year. Maybe leaving to Barney. Or new owners, depending on how all this goes down. James climbs in.

“Did Ursula come get Lucky?”

“Yeah, just after you left.” James puts a bag down between his feet. It clanks.

“This is a terrible idea,” Clint says.

James laughs. “Probably.”

 

***

“This is a terrible idea,” Clint says again, because it is, and because he’s not sure James understands just how terrible this idea really is. He left New York for a reason. He never really intended to come back.

“It’s not like we’re short on weapons,” James says. Then he frowns. “Or did you want the Glock?”

“I mean doing this without the others. Doing this alone.”

James' shoulders come up, as if he was going to shrug and never finished the movement. Clint sighs.

“We should at least tell Thor. He’d…”

Clint stops and thinks about it. _He’d what, Barton?_ He asks himself. _He’d disappear and when he came back he’d say everything was looked after._ And it would be. Clint’s got no reason not to trust Thor, except that Thor loves his brother too much. Clint gets it. He understands what it is to love somebody who doesn’t deserve it, and to not be able to stop. After all, he cried when the cops told him about the accident, and he cried after the funeral. He cried under his blankets that first night in the first orphanage, too. Until Barney came over and told him to shut the hell up, that there was no point crying, it wasn’t going to bring them back and they didn’t want them back anyway. Thor loves his brother like Clint used to love his folks. As if, if he just loves him enough, it’ll fix everything that’s broken. He's wrong, but Clint _gets it._

In the SHIELD intake interview they asked him what his greatest weakness was, and he answered _I’m oppositional,_ which was what the parole officer said when he was denied day parole. But his greatest weakness is actually simpler than that. He doesn’t like seeing pain. Suffering animals, desperate people, doesn’t matter. It bothers him and he’s compelled to fix it, whatever it takes. If it means stealing a mobster’s dog, or extracting an enemy agent instead of killing her, he’ll do it. Phil figured it out and made it work for him, and for SHIELD. Phil made it feel like a strength instead of a weakness. And then Loki. Loki who figured it out in a heartbeat.

And now Phil’s gone, and SHIELD is gone, and Clint’s never had a better example of how this _thing_ of his, this need to stop other people from hurting, is a god damned motherfucking weakness.

James is looking at him, the Glock held out between them. “Hey,” he says, and waggles the gun. Clint shakes his head.

“Never mind. Just. Let the record show that I said this was stupid.”

“Noted,” James says. He tucks the gun back into the holster he’s got strapped under the coat he’s wearing. He’s armed up again, and honestly, Clint has no idea where he’s put it all. Between James' own coat and Barney’s oversized clothes, the arsenal is invisible.

Clint, on the other hand, is pretty obviously armed. He puts his re-strung bow back into its case, and they get out of the rental car and walk, the two of them, through the drizzling, dark street into the spotlit parking lot and up to the condo entry. He plans on buzzing at the entry phone but James has the door open before Clint can even find the name on the name plate.

"Rude," Clint says.

"Says the guy who's helping me break into Asgard."

Clint hasn't got anything to say to that, so he follows James him inside. They take the first right, then a left, and come to 105. It’s got a little sprig of fresh, green rosemary hanging from a finishing nail under the peephole. Clint knocks. They wait, and then the door opens up.

Erik Selvig is fully clothed, which is a nice surprise, considering what Clint last heard about him. He smiles when he sees Clint, not the big, open, sunny smile that he gives to most of the others, but a smaller, tighter smile. Clint returns it.

“Clint,” Selvig says, brow scrunching up. “Late night visit?”

“Figured you’d be awake,” Clint says. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, you know,” Selvig answers, nodding and waving one hand in the air. His grey eyes stray to James. He frowns. “Who’s your friend?”

“Uh, that’s… what I’m here about,” Clint says. “Mind if we come in? There’s a… a story. And we could use your help.”

Selvig’s eyes narrow a little. He looks from Clint to James and back again, then double-takes. He’s seen the arm. He looks at James and James stares back. “Is that…?”

Clint nods. “Yeah.”

“Well,” Selvig says. “I guess you’d better come in.”

 

*

 

Selvig makes them coffee and if he’s ever heard of the Winter Soldier, he’s not showing it. It wouldn’t surprise Clint if Selvig’s gone off the news too. After you’ve been the news it’s tough to be interested in it any more.

“I don't see why you can't just get Thor to ask Heimdall to open the way?” Selvig asks, _sotto voce_ when he and Clint are making coffee in the kitchen and James is wandering around the living-room-cum-laboratory with an expression of revulsion on his face.

“It’s tricky. We can’t.” Clint pauses and looks at Selvig, really looks at him. His hair used to be blond but it’s not any more. “You doing okay?”

“Oh yeah. Well, you know. Can’t… sleep.”

“Yeah,” Clint says quietly. “I know.”

“Doesn’t help, knowing he’s still alive,” Selvig says.

“No. It really doesn't.” Clint sighs. “Look, I’ve got unfinished business with… that asshole and I know you do too, and James does too. This is our chance. You know? To… get a good night’s sleep.”

Selvig looks at him, grey eyes suddenly sharp and bright. “You’re going to finish it.”

“Officially? Officially we’re just… James and I think there are other people like us. I mean, that asshole’s got weapons stashed everywhere. Everything he does is to try to become king in Asgard. Why’d he come to earth in the first place, huh? Why’d he care? Why’s James one-fifth Asgardian tech? How’d SHIELD end up so fucking full of Hydra? I think he's putting his weapons inside of people, and he's going to use them to fight. Maybe soon.”

Selvig goes over to the big, old fridge and opens it. Inside is stuffed with lettuce and apples and carrots and things. There’s a big jug of organic milk in an old-fashioned glass bottle, and two blocks of butter wrapped in gold foil. Selvig must see Clint’s eyebrows go up because he smiles. “Jane,” he says, taking the cream out. It’s in a high-end glass bottle too. There’s a picture of a smiling cow on it. “She’s the one who convinced me to come back to New York. She makes sure I get my grant applications in on time too.” He smiles, eyes soft and fond. “She worries that I don’t look after myself. Which I don’t.” He closes the fridge and comes back. “You’re a lot younger than me, so maybe you don’t remember the twentieth century like I do, but you can trust me on this: humans are just as capable of doing terrible things as the Asgardians are.”

“I know, I know. But you have to admit-”

“What happened to us, and that arm, yes. It is a bit weird.” Selvig agrees. “And it adds up. Using Midgard as a weapon cache for when things go wrong in the other realms makes a lot of sense. He knows he can move weapons between the worlds because he did it with the Destroyer.” Selvig sighs.

"People aren't weapons," Clint says quietly.

"No," Selvig agrees. “So you’re going to break into Asgard to talk to him.”

Clint laughs. “Not ‘talk’ exactly,” he says. Clint looks at the mugs and then at Selvig. “And that’s the main reason we didn’t go ask Thor.”

Selvig’s eyes go wide. “Oh, Clint,” he whispers. He puts down the cream. He straightens up. He pulls at his stubbled chin a couple times. “Clint, you really should have said something earlier.” He claps his hands together, and then rubs them, like he’s warming them up. “Alright then,” he shouts. In the living room, James looks up from a device, scowling.

“What?” he snaps.

Selvig beams. “Let’s go up to the roof!”

 

*

 

It’s windy up there, and the contraption the Selvig has built glows and pulses with the sort of mesmerizing blue that makes Clint queasy. Selvig looks over the device at him and nods. “Takes a bit of getting used to,” he calls over the roar of the wind. He nods at James. “Doesn’t bother you, though, does it?”

“As long as it doesn’t shock me,” James shouts back. “If it shocks me I’ll be bothered.”

Selvig grimaces. “It’s not going to shock you; that’d be a waste of energy.”

James doesn’t answer, and it doesn’t matter because Selvig’s looking up, expectant and suddenly the night sky is split by brilliant, scintillating bands of multicoloured light. “Come on, come on,” Selvig yells. “Into the light.” He laughs, loud and maybe slightly crazed. “Heimdall’s in for a surprise and I bet he won’t be happy about it! You’re ready for a fight, aren’t you?”

James grins. Clint shrugs his bow into his hand and fishes out a net arrow. They start moving together, him and James, toward the rainbow light. The air turns violent, fast and warm. The light enfolds them. Suddenly Clint remembers that he’s promised to check in with Steve, and if he doesn’t Steve is going to think he’s dead. “Selvig,” he shouts, “is there cell reception in Asgard?”

Selvig’s laugh is the last thing he hears before the wind roars up and takes them.

 


	9. Chapter 9

“Clint. _Clint_.”

It’s James’ voice. Close, very close. He can only hear it on one side. His head really hurts.

“Wake up. Wake _up_.”

He blinks his eyes open. Stars overhead, whirling too fast, too bright, in a satin-black sky. Lurching forward and back in time with the pulse in his head.

“Ow,” Clint whispers.

They’re on a spur of rock, and he can hear and feel the boom and crash of steady waves. He’s cold. Shivering. Soaked, he realizes, and his head aches like his sinuses have been full of water. James is straddling him, brow knotted, shoulders hunched, hands cradling Clint’s head. He’s radiating heat like a furnace.

“Hm. You’re warm,” Clint says, like the idiot he is. James’ whole body relaxes, his hands slide down to Clint's shoulders. He smiles, and Clint hears a soft, relieved sound in his left side. He reaches for his right ear. The hearing aid is gone. “Aw man,” he whispers. He blinks. His eyes are scratchy. “What happened?”

“We landed in the water. I thought you’d drowned for a bit there.”

“Did you give me mouth to mouth?” he asks, and then thinks, _Christ, Barton, pack it in_.

James laughs. “You wish,” he says. Both those things could have been calculated to make Clint shut up, and neither were. Oh. Clint might be blushing. He sure feels warm. In fact, he’d better get James off his lap, or things are going to get awkward.

He sits up and James gets off him and watches while he fumbles at his left side. “I gotta get this out and dry it off,” he says. “Gonna have to… you know ASL?” James shakes his head. Clint frowns. “Okay, well, I’m not going to be able to hear you. I can lip read, but it’s not a good way to communicate.”

James nods. Clint pulls the hearing aid off and pops open the casing door and sighs. Stark made him these, and he’s got basically every gadget in the world synced up to them, his phone, the Avengers comms, SHIELD comms, back when SHIELD was still a thing. It’d be nice if he didn’t lose both of them at the same time. It’s not like he’s got five grand kicking around, or SHIELD medical coverage any more.

He fusses a bit with the aid and James goes off to do something and then comes back a little while later and settles down shoulder to shoulder with him. James is soaked too, but the cold doesn’t seem to be bothering him. Steve never seems to feel the cold either. A part of Clint really hates supersoldiers.

Clint does feel the cold. He’s soaked and the wind is vicious, but at least it’s drying out the aid. He fumbles around in his pockets with cold-stiffened hands, digs out his phone, and pushes the button. Nothing happens. He shakes it and a little horizon of water goes sloshing under the screen. “Well crap,” he mutters.

James touches his arm. Clint looks at him and James mouths something, once, then again. _Dead?_

“Toast,” Clint agrees. He chews his bottom lip and thinks about his daily check ins with Steve. “I, uh… I…” he stops and really thinks about this. Now, mid-mission, is not the time to tell your partner that you’re maybe not as trustworthy as they think. “Well. I was gonna get a new one anyway,” he says. Like he’s just got cash kicking around. New hearing aids, new phone. _Why not a new car, since you’re daydreaming, Barton._ He wraps his arms around himself and frowns.

James gives him a thoughtful look. He shrugs out of his coat and passes it over to Clint.

“You don’t need it?”

James shakes his head.

“Why wear it?”

He gestures with the coat again, _take it_ , and Clint does. It weighs three times what it ought to and he remembers that’s because there’s a gun, a grenade, a set of brass knuckles, and a number of other deadly things in the pockets. Suddenly Clint’s heart lurches. “Oh _shit_ , my bow.”

James puts a hand on his shoulder and points. It’s there. The case open, maybe thirty percent of the arrows from his quiver still there, lying on the rocks next to James’ disassembled Glock. Clint sags with relief. James gives him a lopsided smile and settles his shoulders, leaning his back against the rocks. Clint sighs and does the same.

 

*

 

It takes a while to dry stuff, even in the constant wind. Clint’s clothes, still damp at all the seams, all itch. He isn’t even in the city and he already hates Asgard.

James settles down to reassemble the Glock and Clint puts the hearing aid in and tests it out. It works, which is nice. Maybe it’ll keep working.

While James works on his gun, Clint does a little recon. He finds a bridge of sorts, down the rocks a bit, and on the other side of the spur they landed on. It looks like filament of light, as fine as spider silk, but plenty wide enough to walk on. It runs ruler-straight from the cavern to a glowing, golden city on the horizon. Overhead the sky is dark, star-dashed, and a rainbow stretches where the Milky Way ought to cut a path. It looks like dawn at the horizon, and it looks like midnight overhead. He goes back to get James and they pack up together and head down to the bridge.

“Is that where we want to go?” James asks, looking out toward the golden city. “Is that where the jail is?”

“Yeah," Clint answers. "I think the jail’s actually in the palace.”

James smirks at him, then frowns. “Wait. You’re serious?”

“Yeah,” Clint says, “along with the big ol' planet-ruining weapons cache. And I think Thor said that's where they kept the Destroyer too.” James scowls at him. Clint laughs. “Don’t look at me like that I didn’t build it.”

“I thought Asgardians were smart.”

“They’re good at tech. They’re great at magic.”

“And tactically terrible.”

“You say that like it’s not good for us.”

James looks back at the city and grins.

 

* 

 

They go down to the bridge and get walking, single file. It takes Clint a few minutes to realize the gradations of light and dark that move across the rainbow above them are people coming and going, and that they are actually walking _below_ the Bifrost. The Bifrost is crystalline, as wide as a highway, and the coloured lights chase themselves through the surface. But their little bridge is a frosty-looking silver, like it’s a shabby sort of replica made by a new apprentice or something. The edges fall away like the end of the world, and there are cracks underfoot. But the bridge doesn’t buckle, and even in the wind, it’s still.

Clint doesn’t mind heights, actually kinda likes them, considering how the reduce the odds of people noticing him, or worse, _bothering_ him. James, on the other hand, walks with his head down and his eyes fixed on the place where every single step will fall, and there’s sweat beading on his neck.

“It’s plenty big. We could walk two-by-two if we wanted,” Clint says. James laughs, soft and harsh.

“I'm not walking by the edge,” he answers.

When Clint has a look down, he sees gunmetal grey waters that seem to turn more and more blue the nearer they get to the sheer rock cliffs and the soaring, golden city at the edge of the bridge. The city rises up like the castle in a Disney movie. He half expected a huge black dragon to be coiled around the base of it. There’s not. It's just rocks.

He and James walk for twenty minutes in silence. Clint's wet shoes squish with every step. The city doesn’t get bigger.

“It’s like walking down the Strip in Vegas,” Clint complains.

James doesn't answer. He walks with his head down. Dogged. The ends of his hair are starting to stick to his neck.

"Ever been to Vegas?" Clint asks.

James doesn't answer.

“Hey, James," Clint says, touching his shoulder. "You doing okay?”

James doesn’t turn or even look at Clint. He does tilt his head just a little, like maybe he’d like to look over his shoulder, but he doesn’t trust the sea below to stay where it is if he’s not watching it. "Don't like heights," he says. And suddenly Clint remembers how Bucky Barnes died.

“Okay,” he says, using the voice he normally uses for spooked animals. “Well, maybe we should both hang on to something, huh? In case one of us slips.”

James nods, a quick, jerking motion. He reaches behind him, hand open, and Clint doesn’t actually have rope or anything practical like that, so he pulls off his soggy belt and puts the leather in James’ hand. James grips it. His knuckles pop and turn white and the leather deforms. They walk another ten minutes. The city gets a little bigger. The sea turns blue, and starts to give way to the land. James starts to raise his head a little more. Clint starts to breathe a little easier.

“Almost there,” he says.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t let go of the belt, and Clint doesn’t ask him to.

There’s a narrow set of crystalline stairs at the end of the bridge and when they get there, then James peels his hand off the belt, and sags down on the step to catch his breath. His hair is stuck to his soaked neck, and Barney’s old t-shirt is dark in patches where he’s sweated through.

Clint sits down beside him. He puts his shoulder against James’, the way Natasha used to do for him when things got crazy. Something about the contact always steadied his head.

James makes little gulping noises and breathes like he’s finished a race. Clint looks up at the rainbow bridge, at the dark spots that mean people coming and going.

“Okay,” James says after a while. He nods and sits back. “Okay. I’m ready.”

“I might need another minute,” Clint says.

James laughs, voice suddenly cracking like glass. He leans back, puts his mismatched hands up to his eyes, and then leans forward again, and covers his head with his arms. Clint waits and watches people coming and going across the rainbow bridge.


	10. Interlude II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title has finally changed! And thus it shall stay.
> 
> Also! Happy new year! I hope 2015 is good to you guys. 
> 
> Also also! Come hang out over [on my tumblr](http://tamthewriter.tumblr.com/) if you like!

“Tell me what you said,” Sam says, like he’s talking to a giant two-year-old and not a 95 year old who technically outranks him.

Steve looks down. He looks up. He looks past Sam’s right ear. They're sitting outside, poolside, at Stark Tower, and the rain is pattering softly down on the retractable roof, and it's getting dark now, and Sam knows there's nothing but an ivy-covered concrete wall behind him. Sam knows this because he didn't survive two tours by not paying attention to what's behind him.

“You like ivy, Steve?"

Steve clears his throat. "I think it might be Virgina Creeper," he says.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Come on. What did you say? When we started looking I said, _set mission parameters_ and you said-”

“Just knowing he’s okay would be success,” Steve says. It sounds a little grudging. "But, God, Sam. Sitting here knowing he's out there. He's my…" Steve trails off and hunches over and Sam thinks, not for the first time, how weird it is that such a big man always manages to look small when he gets embarrassed.

"I know," Sam says. "I did history in school. I know."

Steve nods, still looking at the beer bottle in his hands.

"And I saw you stand there like a dope when he pointed a gun at you."

Steve doesn't look up, not even when the doors open and Thor comes out, grinning, wearing a pair of surf short and flip flops and carrying an extra-large towel over one shoulder. Thor turns his grin on the two of them.

"I advise you all to keep back from the pool if you don't wish to get wet," he shouts happily.

"Thanks for the warning," Sam calls back. He looks at Steve again. It's not his business, but the question's been rattling around in his head for a while, so he asks. "Are you in love with him?"

Steve looks up as if startled by the questions. "What? No. No."

"You know it'd be okay with me," Sam says, because sometimes things need to be spelled out. "Not that you need my permission or anything, but, just putting it out there."

Steve flashes a little smile. "I know Sam. Thank you. But it's really not like that. He's family. He's the only family I have left. And I…" he sighs. "I'm sitting here in New York and I know he's in Iowa, and I know he's probably hurting and I can't go to him."

Sam can see where this is going. “You promised Clint you wouldn't interfere."

Steve grunts and screws up his mouth like he just ate something bad. "I was half asleep. That shouldn't be held against me."

"No take-backsies. Anyway, the outcome is a mission success. So congratulations.” He knocks the neck of his beer bottle against Steve’s.

Thor goes by, grinning, and making straight for the diving board. Sam and Steve glance at each other. They both get up and push their chairs a little further away from the edge of the pool, then sit back down.

“Listen,” Sam says. “I’m gonna call the VA and tell them I'm coming back to work, now we know-”

There’s a splash. A shower of drops soaks the concrete around the edge of the pool and splatters both him and Steve a little. Thor’s not really a diver.

“Now we know where he is,” Steve finishes. Sam nods.

Thor’s voice comes booming over to them. “Apologies, friends, if I soaked you.”

Sam leans back in his chair and looks at Thor, treading water in the pool and grinning at them. “You can’t cannonball hard enough to soak us,” he says.

Thor’s eyebrows shoot up. "I accept your challenge," he says, and starts swimming back to the diving board.

Steve’s smile renews itself. “You are gonna get drenched,” he tells Sam, grinning, and pushes his chair back a little further. It’s the first time he’s seen Steve smile more than once a week since the business in DC and it’s good to see it. Sam grins back.

“So, now that you’re not in pursuit, what are you going to do with yourself, Captain America?”

Steve looks around him. “Well,” he says, “I got invited to this pool party at a friend’s place.”

Sam makes a show of looking at Steve's khakis and button-up shirt. "Is that what you used to swim in, back in the day?"

"Actually, I never learned how to swim," Steve says. He looks Sam up and down. “But I see you future-men all swim in jeans and t-shirts.”

Sam snorts. “I just drank a beer, and I don’t have super soldier metabolism, so I'm not going in for a while. Besides, Thor’s gonna empty the pool.”

Right on cue, there’s the _sproing_ of the diving board and then a splash. It's not a rain of airborne pool water this time, so much as a splatter that darkens the whole side of Sam's shirt. He frowns at it. “I mean, the way things are going you might have to define what you mean by _swim_.”

"Getting soaked on the side of the pool doesn't count." Steve smiles and finishes his beer. "So, uh, Clint says he's broke. Do people still wire money?”

While Sam explains internet banking, the poolside doors slide open. Darcy and Jane come out, dressed to swim, and jump right into the pool. A few minutes later, Bruce Banner comes out too, with a book tucked under his arm. Not a partier, that guy, but Sam likes him. He gestures at Bruce, because there’s an empty lounge chair near by, but Bruce waves a little shyly and pretends not to understand the gesture and goes over to the bar, which is currently empty, and opens up his book.

“Nice try,” Steve says.

"I'll charm him eventually. You thought about how much money you want to send?"

"All of it?" Steve asks, shrugging. "Seriously, Sam, if I have to live off oatmeal and beans again so Bucky's okay, that's fine with me."

"Maybe ask Clint what he needs before you send every penny you own."

Steve nods. He pulls out his phone and starts to text. Sam's not exactly sure why he's surprised.

Tony's the next one out to the pool yard. He looks around, gives a satisfied nod at the chaos in the pool, grins like a shark at the sight of Bruce sitting at the bar and says, “Oh good, the bartender’s already here,” and makes a beeline. Bruce puts aside his book and looks like he's fighting off the urge to flee. He glances at Sam and Sam looks pointedly at the empty chair. _All this could have been yours._ Bruce smiles. "Next time," he mouths, before Tony takes him by the shoulders and steers him behind the bar and puts him to work cutting limes.

A few seconds later, Natasha comes through the doors too. She’s wearing her gear. Frowning.

"Nah, nope," Tony calls out, pointing at her as she walks. "Tonight Stark Tower is a work-free environment."

She ignores Tony and starts toward him and Steve, moving fast.

"Hey," Sam says, to get Steve's attention.

Sam doesn’t know Natasha, not really, but they worked together and he knows she’s wary even when she’s not in danger, like she’s always in a potential combat zone, like there’s nobody in the world you can trust. Sam figures she spends a lot of time exhausted. Maybe she doesn’t even know what it’s like to be rested any more. That kind of feeling is something Sam understands.

“You get some bad news?” he asks. She stares at him, then cracks a small smile and drops down onto the empty lounge chair.

“Kind of,” she admits. She looks at Steve. “Barton sent me a weird text and I haven’t been able to reach him since.” She looks at Sam. “So I called his neighbours. Sarah Singh says he took off with a stranger this morning, nobody knows when he’s coming back. Gurmail Singh said he had bruised knuckles.”

“Oh god,” Steve whispers.

She nods. “I’m going to Iowa.”

And Sam knows she means, _I might be going to bring back the body of a friend_. He puts aside his beer. “If you want backup, I’ll go get my wings right now,” he says quietly.

She nods at him.

And that’s when the half the evening sky suddenly lights up like it’s the Fourth of July. Sam turns, half expecting to see some crazy new Stark gadget, but that's not it. Lights are rainbow-ribboning part of the sky, plunging out of the clouds and down toward the city like a waterfall.

“ _Wow_ ,” Bruce says.

Sam stares. He gets to his feet and goes over to the edge of the roof to get a better look, and he’s not the only one. He can hear the others getting out of the pool, and Tony’s flip-flops slapping against the concrete. The lights twist and braid and twine like living things.

Sam exhales. “What is that? Northern lights?” he asks. “I didn’t know you could see them this far south.”

Natasha shakes her head. “That’s not the Northern Lights,” she says. She glances over her shoulder. “Is that the Bifrost?”

“No,” Thor says. His voice is very soft. Sam looks. Thor’s frowning, pool water dripping off his hair and beard. He goes to the edge of the building and puts his hands on the rail. Sam’s never seen him look so serious before. “It is not the Bifrost, but it is something very like it.”

“Oh no,” Jane says, hands suddenly going to her face. “Oh my god. Erik’s machine. Somebody’s using Erik’s machine.”

Thor reaches behind him. Sam's seen the movement often enough to know that in about three seconds, and yep, here it comes, Mjolnir.

"No, Thor, come on," Tony says. "Work-free environment. One night only."

Thor smiles at Tony. "I am sorry my friend. Erik Selvig's gate was only to be used in an emergency. If someone has activated it, something is wrong in Asgard."

Sam glances over at Natasha and she's looking at the glowing sky, her eyes narrow. "I have such a bad feeling about this," she murmurs.

Darcy looks over at Tony and pats his shoulder. “Sorry guy," she says. "Pool party cancelled on account of jerks."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to DroolingFangirl for the [link to the hearing loss simulator!](http://www.starkey.com/hearing-loss-simulator) Super interesting, super helpful. (If you're not HOH or Deaf and you wonder what it's like to have hearing loss, you might find it interesting too.)
> 
> Also, I'm not a member of the HOH or Deaf community, and I would really like to write HOH!Clint in a way that makes sense, so if you are HOH or Deaf and you have feedback about that it is SO WELCOME I CAN'T EVEN TELL YOU HOW WELCOME IT IS! 
> 
> And if you're shy and you want to privately ping me, you can send me an ask through my [Tumblr!](http://tamthewriter.tumblr.com/)

 

After the crystalline stairs, there’s a tunnel in the rock. Below them, the surf booms and pounds against walls of stone, and the horizon stretches out forever, dotted with islands like the one they came from, the air glittering with ships. Clint takes a long look and then follows James in. The cavern is narrow and dark and they have to feel their way, fingers rubbed raw on the rough stone. James moves slow, and Clint keeps one hand firmly on James’ shoulder. This’d be exactly the kind of place where it’d be easy to get separated, or go down a fissure, and end up unconscious or dead. Below them the sea booms and shakes the rock under their feet. After about ten minutes in the narrow dark, Clint can see the outline of James’ head and shoulders again, and the gleam of metal at his arm. A minute later, James turns his head and Clint sees his mouth move, but the noise he made is swallowed up by a booming that reverberates through the whole place. Something whines at the edge of his hearing. James stops in front of him and turns, and speaks, but Clint can’t see his mouth.

“I can’t hear you,” he says.

James puts a finger to Clint’s lips. They stand in the dark in silence for a while and Clint realizes that the shuddering of the rocks under foot isn’t rhythmic and steady. It’s irregular. James’ moves his hand from Clint’s mouth, turns, and they start walking again, slower now, and James is leaning forward a bit, looking ahead in the gloom. The noise is coming and going again. And then he realizes what it is. It’s the whistle of something huge cutting through the air, and that irregular shaking is the concussion of a blast. He squeezes James’ shoulder and James stops, turns around, and leans in close enough that Clint and smell his sweat and the metal of his arm.

“Bombs?” he whispers. He sees James nod and nods back.

At the mouth of the tunnel they pause. James uses the military hand sign for _Stop_ and Clint waits while James creeps forward and then turns and gestures _Follow_. They go forward together, squeezing one after the other through the narrowing path. Both of them shrug off their gear and turn sideways to sidle out, Clint’s belt buckle scraping and catching enough to spark once on the wall.

And then they’re out of the tunnel and… and for a second Clint thought they were outside, maybe in a stadium or something, but they’re inside. The place is massive. Colossal pillars like California redwoods hold up a soaring roof where red flags, bordered in gold, flutter in air currents. It’s bigger than any stadium Clint has ever been in, and it slopes, almost imperceptibly, toward a dais that’s raised up a few steps. It’s spotlit by a skylight. There’s a big chair there. Empty.

“Where the hell is everybody?” Clint whispers. As if in answer to his question, a pair of armoured guards appear from some distant door and begin to cut their way through the vast and empty space and Clint thinks to himself, _well, getting arrested would be a quick way to find out where the jails are,_ and sees James reach for the gun that’s holstered under his arm. But the guards keep walking, moving fast, heads down, maybe running to face who or whatever’s bombing the city. They go behind a pillar and disappear; there must be a door over there.

“Jails?” Clint whispers. James shrugs and grins, and they run, the two of them, for the place where the guards appeared.

The door opens onto a stair, and the stair goes down and down. James leads, stepping softly, but there aren’t any guards. They reach the bottom and there’s a long chamber, the place illuminated by a sourceless light and almost shadowless. The cells are more like fishtanks than they are like any jail cell Clint’s familiar with. There’s a golden latticework of wire that glows softly in the glass, or whatever it is, and behind that are all kinds of creatures. A woman with limbs far too long for the size of her body, a minotaur, a child. Clint does a double take and realizes the boy, if it is a boy, has a mouth full of long teeth, and his eyes are not child-like at all. All the prisoners turn to look at them as they pass. The minotaur comes to the glass and looks down. James looks up. “Loki,” he says.

The big bull-head turns, elongated chin coming up, jerking in one direction. James nods and says thanks and they keep going.

Around a corner, that’s where he is. Clint stops.

It’s not a jail cell. Clint’s been in a jail cell. More than one. This is not it. It’s an apartment. A nice one. Better than his back in NYC. There’s two comfortable looking chairs, a bed pushed against one wall and heaped with blankets and with furs. There’s even a little bookshelf.

Loki looks clean, tidy, _rested_. He’s sitting with one leg propped up on one knee, a book open in one hand, and the other holding a glass of what Clint is pretty damn sure is wine.

Clint flushes hot and then he goes cold. _Calm. Down._ He tries to breathe slow and deep, like he’s lining up a shot. It sort of works. His shaking peaks and starts to ebb. James is looking at him, and Clint’s pretty sure he’s sizing him up, deciding if it’s safe to take him any further. _Get it together Barton,_ he tells himself. He nods at James and James frowns back. He gives the military hand sign for _Stay_ and Clint shakes his head and gives him the middle finger. James grins and they start walking again.

They stop in front of the cell. Like visitors at a zoo, looking into an enclosure. Loki turns his head and _smiles_. He looks Clint in the eye. _Ah. Hello._ Loki’s voice. In his head. Just like before.

It makes Clint’s stomach clench. It makes him sick. He wants to throw himself at the glass and smash it, and he wants to drag Loki down the corridor and open his throat. It makes him… Suddenly he’s very calm.

Loki gets to his feet and comes over to the glass. His mouth moves, but Clint doesn’t catch it. Clint looks at James and James is frowning. James gets a little closer to the glass.

“Where are the others?” he asks.

Loki says nothing, does nothing, but Clint hears, _Did you miss me? Did you dream of me?_

“The others like us,” James says. “The rest of your weapons on Midgard. Where are they?”

_I can give you what you want._

“How many are there like us?”

_That’s why you came here, isn’t it? To submit._

“How _many?_ ” James shouts.

Loki’s expression changes. Innocent concern. He leans forward and puts a hand to his ear.

_Oh I do like you._

James turns to Clint and says something but all Clint can hear is the soft laughing in his head. James touches his arm.

“Clint.”

Clint snaps back. He blinks. “Sorry.”

“You with me?”

“Yeah.” He nods. James hand is warm on his arm. He’s cold, freezing. He’s freezing because he’s soaked with sweat. His shirt’s sticking to him, it’s running down his temples and his neck and his back. His breathing’s fast and ragged. “Yeah. I’m… we’re gonna have to find a way to talk to him. Get us in, or bust him out.”

That second thing. That second thing, Clint’s not sure if he meant to say that. It’s a terrible idea. Worse than any other idea the two of them have had to date, and that’s saying something. They should _not_ do that second thing.

“We’ll come up with something,” James says, and lets go of his arm. He looks at Clint a little too long and Clint nods.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” he says. “It’s fine.”

James goes back to the glass and Clint shakes his bow lose and grabs an arrow and takes aim at Loki while James’ fingers run over the frame around the glass.

James straightens up. “I think there’s a-”

“ _Where in Odin’s name is the Watch?”_ someone yells.

James and Clint retreat to the corner and a moment later a pair of guards in golden armour and stag-horn helmets go rushing by. They don’t even notice the two of them. Clint can’t believe it.

“I’m never that lucky,” Clint whispers. James grins, and his face falls. Clint looks. The guards are coming back.

Clint has just enough time to think, _Shoulda kept your mouth shut, Barton,_ before they’re running.

 


	12. Chapter 12

They run up the stairs, Clint is fast, full of adrenaline and angry, but James is a super soldier; he’s faster. They make the top and get out into the huge chamber they were in before, the one with the giant pillars, and they run smack into a pair of… of…

These guys are not like the guards from earlier. There’s no old fashioned looking metallic armour or stag-horned helmets. Instead they’re wearing something closer to TAC suits, overlaid with armour plating. Oval masks of white cover their faces, the space behind the eyeholes is black; there’s no sign of eyes.

The two guys move _fast_ and Clint gets an arrow to his bow and loose as fast as he’s ever done it. It’s a sweet shot, a perfect shot. But even though the arrow goes right through the upper left quadrant of the guy’s chest, he keeps coming.

“No, hey, you’re supposed to have a heart there!” Clint yells, and then he’s tangling with the guy, and the guy is treating Clint to a haymaker, and Clint, who’s not a big fan of those, is catching that swinging arm and following up with a punch of his own. But the guy’s got two working arms, and there’s something in his other hand that Clint didn’t see. It hits him right under the ribs.

Clint’s on his back on the floor. Rafters overhead. Fluttering banners. A bird flies in through a skylight and then out again. Smart bird.

His mind rushes back. He rolls onto his side, gets to his feet. The two guys have converged on James, one of them still spiked with Clint’s arrow and it doesn’t seem to be slowing him down at all.

Across the hall, there are more of those stag-horned guards from earlier running toward them. Clint’s not sure if they’d be friendly or not, but he’s really not interested in explaining himself, so he lurches toward the two that have triangulated on James. They’re holding staves toward James, and James has his head is down, his teeth bared, his eyes are…

Well…

Once when Clint was little, the family dog got bit by a fox and went rabid. When Clint’s dad went to put it down, Clint went with him. The old lab’s eyes looked just like James do now. Like it knew what was coming, and it hated them. Like it was going to die with its teeth somebody’s throat, and it didn’t much matter whose.

“James,” he shouts. Because James’ hands are empty. _Empty._ And that’s stupid. James is armed to the teeth. He’s a walking armoury. There are probably countries in the world that don’t have the ordinance he has on him. “James draw a fucking gun!”

He tackles one of the guys. He goes down in a clatter of armour and thrashes to get his stave up between him and Clint and it catches Clint’s arm. The pain is blinding. It looks like an old-fashioned stave, but it’s a goddamned stun baton. He knows what hit him and knocked him senseless now. He knows he’s got to get that weapon. He grabs the soldier’s arm, pushes hard to make the elbow lock up. Suddenly there’s a hand on Clint’s shoulder, hauling him up to his feet as if he weighs nothing at all. James. The Derringer barks in the vaulted space. A hole appears between the eyes of the mask and black blood pools out.

“Thanks,” Clint whispers. James’ face is blank, dead-eyed and for a sick second Clint envies him that emptiness. But more guards are coming across the hall, running now, and if they both clock out they’re dead. “Come on,” he says, and grabs James’ shoulder, pulling him toward the doors on the far side of the room. “Come _on_.”

*

This was a bad idea. Such a bad idea. He should never have agreed to do this. He should have talked James out of it. He pushes open the first door they come to and they go spilling out into a colonnade with a view down to the city that’s probably breathtaking, but Clint’s more concerned about the trio of armed guards rushing toward them.

“That way,” he shouts, pointing back the way they just came. “In the hall. We killed two. Don’t know how many more there are.”

The guards blow right past them and Clint’s never been so damn glad for anything in his life. He pulls James back into a run and they go down the sprawling steps into the yard below. He strips a cloak off a body and throws it over James and in the next yard he finds one for himself. Ahead there are a few long, low buildings, stables, he guesses, and they look more or less deserted to Clint. He tugs James in that direction and they go running. Clint goes through the door yelling _Hey, hey!_

Silence. Then a big equine head appears over a stall door. And then a few more, ears pricked toward them. The horses don’t seem much bothered, just curious. The place is calm. It smells like warm animals and fresh straw. There’ll be access to water. It’s a good place to lie low while they figure things out.

“This way,” he says, and goes down the stalls to the far end, where there’s a dimly-lit stall half-full with a golden heap of straw. “Inside,” he says, and James goes in and stands. Clint looks back up the stable and scowls at the horses that are, all of them now, looking back at him. “Nosy buggers,” he whispers, and ducks into the stall.

“Hey,” he says, coming over to James. “You okay? You get hurt?”

James is looking at him. His eyes aren’t terrifying any more. He looks like himself again, more or less. Except his jaw seems locked against his teeth.

“James. Did you get hurt?”

“No,” he says at last.

Clint exhales. “Okay good. Maybe you should sit down.”

James drops into the straw and Clint goes to check that the stall door is closed, and he’s shaking too, hands fumbling at the latch.

“I thought you were dead,” James says. “Saw you lying there. Still. Thought you were dead.”

“Just knocked stupid,” Clint answers, coming back to the straw and sagging down too. He’s exhausted. His stomach and shoulder muscles are killing him from the shock from that baton.

“Who the hell are the guys in the masks?” James asks.

Clint grunts. “Dunno. Maybe they’re the Svartalfar. The ones that attacked London.” He rubs the back of his head where it’s bruised from striking the stone floor. “I don’t see why they’d be after Asgard, though. Not right now. The way Thor tells it, they got their asses handed to them in that fight.”

James shrugs. “Who cares? It’s working for us.”

“I guess. Hey, why didn’t you draw a gun?”

“Couldn’t,” James says. “Not permitted to draw weapons on handlers.”

Clint stares. “Those guys were-”

“No. Not them. Not exactly. Anybody with a stun baton.” He looks at Clint and he looks almost right again, except that he looks like he’s just seen a bad accident and it’s making him feel queasy. “Thought I was going back for a few minutes there.”

“You’re not going back,” Clint says.

James nods. “No,” he says. “I’m not.” He says it so softly Clint almost doesn’t hear it.

Clint clears his throat. He looks back over the stable door, then up, to the exposed rafters. “I’m going up into the rafters to keep watch,” he says to James. “Keep your head down and tell me if you hear anything.”

James nods. He looks at Clint again. “You looked sick,” he says suddenly, as Clint’s grabbing the side of the stall, ready to heave himself up. “In the jail. Thought you were gonna faint.”

There are things Clint should say. There are things Clint should tell James, he knows that. He knows that you don’t hold out, not in a mission, not with intel like that. “Didn’t,” he says at last, and scrambles up into the rafters.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIC RATING HAS BEEN CHANGED TO MATURE because at long last there is smut!  
> Sort of.

He tries not to think about Loki, but it seeps into his head anyway. Everything Loki said was true. Maybe. He did dream of Loki. He does crave order. He’s not exactly sure why he agreed to this mission. It made sense at the time. It made sense. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not serving Loki, he didn’t come to submit to Loki. He came to punch Loki in the face. He came to rescue the others who’ve been treated like him, wherever they are. He didn’t come here to bow to Loki.

Right?

He keeps an eye on the door and listens and sits still. After about an hour things seem to start quieting down. The weird light is fading like sunset, and the horses have stopped being fascinated by his every move and gone back to their hay. A few guards have come in and looked around, and once one of the masked ones, but nobody stays, and nobody bothers to check all the stalls.

After a while, when the light is starting to fade, Clint picks his way back down and settles beside James.

“You okay?” he asks.

James nods. “Didn’t think getting shocked would…” he stops and then shakes his head. “This was a terrible idea.”

“Don’t want to say I told you so but I fucking told you so.”

“Yeah you did.”

They sit in silence for a while. It’s quiet in here. It’s warm. It’s probably as good a place as any to get a few minutes of sleep before they try to get to Loki again. He looks over at James, about to say something stupid, and stops. James is staring, eyes fixed in the middle distance. Clint’s seen that look on operatives before. He’s worn that look too.

“Hey,” Clint says. “Maybe you need to get some sleep. I’ll wake you up for the mids.”

James nods and lies down, head pillowed by his mismatched hands. The horses in the nearby stalls shift and sneeze and fart. The light gets lower. James’ shoulders don’t relax, his eyes don’t close. He contracts in the straw, like he’s trying to disappear. He lies perfectly still. Clint gives him five minutes, then ten, and when it’s pretty obvious James isn’t going to sleep, Clint sighs and starts talking.

“When I was a kid, my folks died in a car accident.”

“Thought you said I should get some sleep,” James says.

“Yeah, well now I’m telling a story, so listen up.”

James’ teeth flash in the dark.

Clint stretches out his legs and looks at his feet in the gloom. “My dad used to beat us up, me and my brother. My mom did it too, but mostly she'd just let my dad go at it. So. My parents died in a car accident and we had to go to a... A care centre I think it was called, but it was an orphanage.”

James lies still. It’s getting dark so it’s hard to tell, but Clint thinks his eyes are probably closed again. Maybe he’s listening, maybe not.

“So, there I was, first night, crying under my blanket in the dormitory, and Barney comes over and tells me to cut it out. He tells me that if I don't stop crying, he'll give me something to cry about. Just like the old man. So of course I cried harder. Because it made me think of him.” Clint grins in the dark. “It wasn't that I missed him, you know? I just missed thinking that I could make things better. Anyway.” He flops back in the straw. “I do that. I cowboy around trying to make things better and… it never actually fixes anything.” He sighs. “So that’s my resume. You probably saddled up with the wrong guy, James. Full of great intentions, not so hot on the follow-through.”

James unfolds a bit. “What happened?” he asks.

“When?”

“At the orphanage. That first night. What happened?”

Clint grins in the darkness. “Oh, I bawled my eyes out and Barney slugged me. First night I met the Warden on that floor too.”

James laughs. Clint can see the outline of his face and the glitter of his eyes, the gleam of his metal hand opening and closing on a fistful of straw. Clint looks at him for a while.

James’ shoulders move. Must be a sigh. “Look, somebody hits me with electricity, I’m gonna stop working for a bit. You can’t fix it and I don’t need you trying.”

“Yeah, well, fair enough. That stun baton knocked me on my ass.”

“Yeah it did,” James says, his grin getting bigger. “You went back about three feet.”

“It hurt.”

“Preaching to the converted, Barton.” James laughs faintly. He ducks his head. It moves him a little closer to Clint. “They’re bad, those shocks. They can screw you up. You okay?”

Clint nods. “Yeah. I don’t think I hit my head too hard when I went down.” He considers telling James about the voice in his head. About Loki’s voice. “And…” he starts to, really does, and then he bails. “And Nat would say that a head injury a prereq to being on an op with me anyway.”

James snorts. “This Nat, she’s your girl?” he asks.

“She’s like… like the sister I never got.”

James nods. “Steve’s like that. Like a baby brother. Like the stupidest, most reckless god damned baby brother you ever heard of.”

Clint laughs. “That’s probably how Nat feels about me,” he says.

“Good friend.”

“I don’t deserve her.”

“I get that.”

“Hmm.” He’s not really thinking about the conversation, just looking at James, and James is looking back at him. They’re really close together now. Clint realizes with a faint alarm that his hand is covering James’ metal one. He’s not sure when that happened. “Uh,” Clint says.

One side of James’ mouth quirks up. “Wondered when you’d notice.”

“Aw hell,” Clint whispers.

James laughs very softly and moves a little closer. “Doesn’t bother me,” he says quietly. “Not a bit.”

Clint’s mouth goes dry. He wants to put his fingers on James’ pulse. He wants to follow the curve of his jaw to his ear, and tangle fingers in his hair. He wants to say or do something that will make this easier, make it okay, make it make sense. Instead he says, “This mission is a disaster.”

_Smooth, Barton. Very smooth._

“I dunno,” James says. “If you ask me, I’d say things are looking pretty good.”

Clint’s laughs to cover the way his breathing’s gone all screwy. “Yeah?”

He does put his fingers on the curve of James’ jaw, and then he slides them back, to thread through James’ hair. Because he’s stupid like that. James closes his eyes and sighs. And Clint’s chest tightens up another notch.

“Yeah,” James says.

And _Oh god_ , Clint thinks, because the tone of voice is soft and sweet and almost purring. He presses forward a little, and finds James’ mouth with his own. Because stupid. And rushing it. And… he stops. Pulls back. Because, well. _Clint Barton: Jackass_.

But James smiles lazily at him. “That’s nice,” he murmurs, one hand coming up to cup the back of Clint’s head. “Let’s have some more of that.”

All the air comes out of Clint in a rush. James grins, pulling him in, mouth warm and soft, edged with rough stubble.

“Real nice,” he whispers into Clint’s mouth and Clint’s maybe going to die from it because it’s been a long, long time since a guy caught his attention like this, and this is bad, this is really bad, because they’re literally mid-mission. James slides closer, hips against Clint’s hips, pushing Clint back a little, and sliding one leg between his so they’re tangled together. “Real, real nice,” James says again.

He kisses up into it and James pulls him in closer. James moves, the warm weight of him half-covering Clint, and Clint can feel the hard press against his thigh. He groans. James shuts him up with his mouth again, his tongue, his hip grinding against Clint’s. It feels good, good, good. The only good thing in his life for a long time. He breathes hard into James’ mouth.

“You should probably know,” he whispers, “You should probably know that I’ve been divorced like three times.”

James laughs. “We gettin’ hitched?” he asks, and grinds down hard against Clint. “That was quick.”

“Just saying I’m bad at this.” He catches James' face between his hands, looks him in the eyes. “Look, listen to me. You need to know. I’m bad at this.”

James grins. “Well I’m having a real good time,” he answers, grinding hard and Clint gives up and pushes back again and again until he’s arching hard against James and James has his leg between Clint’s and he’s pushing back and Clint would kill to be naked, even in the straw, because it’d feel better than even this and this, this is the only thing that’s felt good in a long, long time.

Something thumps outside. Both of them freeze. There’s the slow, heavy tread of a horse and the _shuff shuff shuff_ of footsteps. Clint holds his breath. The door to the next stall over clicks and groans open. There’s a little shuffling and stamping and the jingle of harness. “There’s a good girl,” somebody says in a soft and sleepy voice. Then the sound of contented munching. “There’s a good girl. All right girl? All right,” the voice says. And then the _shuff shuff shuff_ of retreating footsteps.

Clint lets out a held breath and looks up. There’s a horse face peering over the edge of the stall, ears pricked forward, nostrils flaring. For a minute nothing happens. There’s a long, long silence. Then the horse starts chewing.

James looks at Clint. “I’m, uh. I don't know about you but I’m probably gonna find this difficult with an audience.”

Clint has to squash his face against James’ shoulder to muffle his laughter.

 

They sleep, that’s all. But they sleep curled around one another, warm and close, and don’t bother keeping watch. Clint hasn’t slept that well for a long time.

 


	14. Interlude III

 

The Bifrost opens to him and when he is returned to Asgard, Thor sees at once that something is amiss.

The clockwork interior of Heimdall’s post is scorched in places, smouldering in others. Thor looks around. Heimdall must be here. He looks again and sees him, kneeling, bracing himself upon his sword, his armour dented, slashed, dark and wet with blood. Thor rushes to him.

“You are late, prince of Asgard,” Heimdall says, and that is how Thor knows that Heimdall’s wounds are not severe, and that he will not suffer long, but it only calms the pounding of his heart a little. Thor catches Heimdall’s weight and eases him against the clockworks of the wall. “But you came with warriors, so I suspect you will be welcome all the same.”

Thor glances over his shoulder and laughs. He sent Jane and Darcy to see that Erik Selvig was well, but the others, it seems, did not go with them. In fact, they have come to Asgard.

“What has happened here?” Thor asks, turning back to Heimdall.

“Svartalfar,” he answers. “Not an army but a few dozen. They came through one of the secret ways. I could not see them until they were in the palace, and in here. They brought something through with them, but it is hidden from me.”

“Where is father?”

“There was trouble on Jotunheim. He is there.”

Thor feels Steven’s shoulder brush his as he kneels down beside Thor. “He needs medical,” Steven says in a soft voice. He looks at Thor. "I can carry him." Heimdall laughs. He shakes his head.

“I do not leave my post,” Heimdall says. “Until dismissed by the king of Asgard, or the Bifrost is destroyed.”

Steven looks at Thor, searching. It would be too difficult to explain to him that Heimdall and the bridge are one, that so long as the Bifrost exists, so then does Heimdall, and Heimdall’s absence here would lock Odin out of Asgard. Instead, Thor puts his hand on Steven’s arm. “He will be well,” he says. “And he must stay here. But we must go.” He starts to rise and stops. “This thing that is hidden from you,” he starts. Heimdall smiles a faint and weary smile.

“It is as big as a giant, and somewhere in the palace, but I could not say what it is, or exactly where. Not yet.”

Thor nods and rises to his feet, pulling Steven up with him as he comes. Steven’s eyes are serious and sad, and Thor knows that he does not understand. “Heimdall will be well,” he says again, “but we must go.”

Steven nods. Thor turns to the others. The Avengers have all come to battle with him, but only Anthony and Natasha are armed and armoured. He nods at them all. “To the palace. We will arm ourselves there.” Thor catches Sam’s eyes. They’re wide, his mouth hangs open perhaps a little. The others have seen and done many strange and wondrous things, but Sam is new among them, and he has not. He grins. A trip to Volundr’s workshop is in order. Sam will feel more at home with a pair of wings upon his back. Thor will, as the Midgardians say, make the time. “Let us go,” he says.

“Stark Airlines now boarding,” Anthony announces. Natasha grips him on one side and Banner takes the other. Thor swings Mjolnir, he catches Steven in half a hug, and Steven takes hold of Sam, and then they too are airborne, flying over the Bifrost, toward the city and the palace, where smoke and dust are rising.

 

*

 

The palace is in chaos, and they meet Hogun in the great hall, looking as grim as ever he has looked. Thor embraces him.

“You are unhurt?” Thor asks, looking to be sure.

“Unhurt,” Hogun confirms. He looks weary and worn. “I am glad to see you.”

“And I you. Tell me what has happened.”

Hogun shrugs his shoulders. “There is no battle, my friend. There is no force of svartalfar. There are only small groups of two or three at the most. They seem to have no aim except to cause confusion. It is like chasing rats, but less fun. Odin is away, and so I commanded from the start of the attack, but I must rest. The Lady Sif has command now.”

He nods. “And what of Loki?” Thor asks. He has a deep foreboding and almost dreads to hear the answer.

Hogun gives Thor a knowing look. “He is as he was; below the palace. There has been no attempt to free him.” Hogun leans forward. “Fandral says strangers were seen by two guards in the jail,” he says, “so I wondered if it was a ploy of his. But those strangers fought and killed svartalfar in this very hall some hours ago.” He points to the spot where it happened. “They do not seem to be friends of Loki, or our enemies. I do not know what they are.”

“Strangers,” Steven says. While the others have gone to Volundr to be armed and armoured, he accepted a round shield from one of the guards, and has stayed at Thor’s side. “Excuse me. What strangers?”

Hogun nods at him. “One with your own colouring, and an another with hair like mine. The pale one had a bow. The dark-haired one fought like an animal. He wore silver armour on one arm.”

Thor sees the colour wash out of Steven’s face like ink washing out of linen. “Have heart, my friend,” he murmurs. “They have done good work here. They are no enemies of Asgard.”

Steven nods. Thor turns back to Hogun. “These strangers, I would know if anyone sees them again. They may be shield brothers we are missing in Midgard.”

Hogun nods, eyebrows up. “That would please me, they fought well. I will tell the Lady Sif.”

“And tell her we will go to her soon, once we are all armed.” He smiles at Hogun. “And then get to your bed and rest, my friend. You have done all you can here.”

A faint smile creases Hogun’s mouth. Thor clasps his hand and Hogun returns the grip with him and then with Steven, and last he waves farewell.

“It sounds like Bucky. And like Clint,” Steven says in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry, Thor. I-”

Thor opens his mouth to respond but does not, because in that moment he hears a whoop from above, and Sam sails by overhead. Volundr has given him wings again. These are not like those on Midgard. These are silent, tapered, so thin and light they are almost transparent. Sam cuts through the air between pillars and under banners with a shout.

“These are _great!_ ” he yells.

From the colonnade, Thor can hear the others coming too, most especially Anthony, his voice raised in a farewell shout “…I’m telling you, lunch. On me. Any time. You’ll like my workshop. Seriously, be in touch.” Anthony looks at Thor, beaming like a child on a feast day. “Thor why didn’t you tell me Asgardian tech can expand to fit the person using it? This is going to revolutionize Bruce’s wardrobe.”

Thor smiles, because in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, there is joy in being surrounded by friends for whom chaos and uncertainty is normal. Natasha is physically pushing Anthony into the great hall, and Bruce Banner is walking behind, as if to block his escape, should he attempt to get back to Volundr, which he might, if Thor is any judge of Anthony's temperament. 

“Oh, and, you should probably know,” Anthony goes on, “I’m going to poach that guy for SI. Seriously. I want him on my R&D team. Don’t care what it takes.”

Thor laughs, but Steven ignores him. He is looking instead at Natasha. “Sounds like Clint and Bucky are here,” he says. His voice is very serious.

Natasha’s mouth goes hard. “I told you I had a bad feeling about all this,” she says. She looks at Thor. “Do we know where Loki is?”

“He is still in cells,” Thor says. He does not like to admit that he is as relieved as the others so visibly are. It feels unbrotherly. “No one knows where our friends are, or why they are here, or why the svartalfar have attacked, or their aim in doing so.”

Overhead, Sam whoops once more, does another circuit of the hall, and then cuts his way across the great hall toward them. There’s a hollow _clang_ and Sam’s whooping stops at the same time. Thor looks, they all look. Sam is hanging motionless in mid air. It’s not the work of the wings; they’ve folded up. He’s kneeling in the middle of nothing, high up among the banners. He’s gripping something, something unseen, and looking back at them.

“So,” he calls. “I found the invisible thing. And you’re welcome.”

 

*

 

They cannot make the invisible thing reveal itself, and know only that it is large, as Heimdall said it would be, and that it is metallic. They do not tarry in the great hall. Thor leads them up to the tower where Sif stands among her captains, by windows that look out across the vastness of Asgard, where smoke is still in some places rising.

She smiles at him, warm and glad, and nods at the others. Thor tells her what he knows of Clint and Bucky, and Sif agrees to give orders that they should not be harmed, and promises to tell Thor when they are spotted. Then she sends a detachment of fresh guards to stand watch over whatever it is that skulks in the middle of the great hall, detected but unseen.

 

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

 

James wakes him with a whisper. “Hmm?” he asks, because he didn’t hear the words.

“We should get going,” James says again, a little louder this time. Clint nods. He sits up. The cloak helped but he’s still got straw all over his clothes and in his hair, and tiny, invisible slivers in his arms. James does too.

“C’mere,” Clint says, and plucks the straw from James’ hair. He wants to pick up where they left off last night, since his mouth is so close to James’, but he resists it. James, on the other hand, does not. He kisses Clint and rests his forehead against Clint’s.

“You ready to do this?” James asks him. “You’ll have to face him, hear him again. Are you ready?”

Clint nods. “Yeah.”

James nods back. “Okay,” he says. He sits back. “Yesterday, or whenever that was, when we were down there, before the guards showed up, I found a control panel on the frame. I think if I hit it, it’ll drop that clear wall. We’ll be able to talk to him, but…”

“But he’ll be able to get out,” Clint says. His skin crawls.

“Can you cover from a distance?”

“It took the Hulk to take him down last time he was on earth,” Clint says. “An arrow’s not going to do it.”

James frowns. “Do you have any more hulks?” he asks.

Clint laughs. “Not a thing I carry around, more like a… what is it Stark says? A giant green rage monster.”

“Oh.”

“I have a couple exploding arrows left,” Clint says. “It might be enough to stun him. But it wouldn’t take him down.”

James nods, frowning and thoughtful. “Okay. I’ll drop the wall, you cover. He comes too close to the wall, fire at him, and I’ll put it back up.”

“If he gets out?”

“He doesn’t get out.”

Clint chews his lip. He looks down at the squashed straw and then back at James. “He gets into your head,” he says softly. “And he’s… an illusionist. You can’t believe what you see. Or hear.”

James nods. “If he gets out, we kill him,” he says softly.

“If we can,” Clint says.

“If we can,” James agrees. He shifts and starts to get to his feet.

“Oh god,” Clint whispers. He feels like his chest is going to blow apart. It’s a terrible plan. They can’t do this. He has to stop this from happening. He has to tell James. “He gets into your head,” he says. He gulps a mouthful of air. “He gets into your head and you think you’re doing what you want to do but you’re not, you’re doing what he tells you to do.”

James nods. “Okay. I’ll watch out for it.”

Clint feels sick. He tries. He really tries. “James. I…” words dry up. His mind squirms away from it. “ _He gets into your head,_ ” he says again, desperately this time.

James leans down and pulls Clint to his feet. He smiles at Clint. “I trust you,” he says.

It’s the worst thing Clint’s ever heard.

 

*

 

Things are much quieter now. There’s less smoke in the air, and the bodies that were lying in the yards have been taken away. James hunches in the cloak Clint stole for him, and keeps his arm covered. Clint’s not the only one with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. Nobody even looks twice at them.

They go back through the yards, past guards and soldiers, and a heap of dead svartalfar piled up on a cart. They go back to the colonnade, and in through the door they ran out of yesterday. The huge hall isn’t empty any more. There’s a dozen of the palace guards standing in a circle around nothing at all. Just standing, half facing inward, and half facing outward.

They notice when James and Clint come into the room, and one of their number breaks away and comes toward them.

James shifts, shoulders narrowing, probably reaching for the gun that’s holstered under his arm.

“Let me,” Clint whispers, and James’ shoulders ease a little. Clint goes forward to meet the guard. “All right here?” he asks, as if he knows what the hell they’re doing standing in a ring around nothing. The guard nods.

“Aye,” he says. “But the great hall is not to be entered, Lady Sif’s orders. What’s your business?”

“We’re just passing through, to check on Loki,” Clint says. The guard’s eyes narrow. “Look, it’s not official, but Lady Sif says this whole thing smells like Loki and I think she’s right. I’d sleep easier knowing he was still down there.”

The guard’s mouth quirks into a sympathetic smile. “You and I both, friend,” he says and nods. Clint signals to James and they start walking toward the jails again. The leader of the guards says something to one of his people, and a guard peels away from the detachment and goes running for the door.

“Busted,” Clint whispers.

“Yeah,” James agrees. “Let’s be quick.”

Clint nods. “I feel better knowing there are a dozen soldiers out here,” he confesses. “If he gets out, at least there’s a chance somebody will be able to stop him.”

“He’s not getting out,” James says quietly.

Clint looks at him. “You don’t know that,” he says. It’s the best he can do.

 

*

 

They go down the stairs, and Clint says a silent prayer to anybody who’s listening that there won’t be any guards down here, because it’s one thing to break into a city, it’s another to start murdering people at their posts. He and James go creeping past the other cells, through the hallway, empty of guards.

“The security in this place is terrible,” James says.

“Don’t complain,” Clint answers. “This is exactly what I was hoping…”

He stops. He goes cold. He remembers thinking, _my luck is never this good_ , and the guards appearing. He remembers wondering how they were going to get into the jails, and so grateful for the cover provided by the attack. He was just fervently hoping this place would be unguarded and now, in spite of everything it is.

_See how I give you everything you ask for?_

Loki’s voice in his head.

_Am I not a good master?_

They come around the corner and Loki is on his feet, standing at the glass, waiting for them.

“Ready?” James asks.

Clint grips his bow and says, “Ready as I’ll ever be.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, gosh, this is it guys. I'm not sure if this ending is going to work for everybody, but, um, well, I hope you've had fun regardless, and thank you all for reading!

 

James goes to the glass, to the far end of the panel and glances at Clint. Clint knocks an exploding arrow and draws. A moment later, he hears feet pounding in the corridor, toward them, a lot of feet, moving fast.

“Company, James,” he yells.

James reaches up for the release.

 _“No! Bucky!_ ”

Steve. Steve in Asgard. It takes Clint’s brain a second to process the sight of him here. The shield’s not right. Maybe an illusion. But it’s not just Steve now, the others are here too, they come piling into the space, Sam and Thor and Tony and…

“Nat?” Clint whispers.

“Clint _stop_ ,” she says. The vertical crease between her eyebrows. Again. It’s happening again. He’s out of control again. They've come here because of him and now they're going to be hurt. “Clint, listen to me. You’re being used. Loki’s using you.”

“No,” James says. “I don’t believe it.” He grabs the release.

Thunder rolls. Lightning darts like the tongue of a snake, and strikes James’ arm, but he’s already pulled the release and the glass is falling. James turns on Thor, snarling, and rushes him.

 _Order, certainty, predicability,_ Loki whispers in his mind. _Every piece in its place._

 

Something booms above, not like thunder, like a colossal drum. Something roars, and Clint’s heard that sound before. It’s the Big Guy. And he’s not happy.

James tackles Thor around the middle and drags him to the ground, metal fist up high. Steve, shouting _Stop!_ , goes down after them.

The ground shakes. Dust falls. Teeth punch through the ceiling and peel it back like a tin can lid, and above, above it’s the great hall. The air is full of dust, and there’s a huge mechanical wolf, bigger than a city bus, made of overlapping metal plates like the plates that make up James’ arm, like the plates that made up the Destroyer.

 _The Svartalfar are skilled in stealth, and the Jotuns are exceptional makers of weapons._ Loki smiles. _Both owed me favours._

The wolf opens its mouth as if to roar, and the sound it makes belongs to the Hulk. As if the Hulk is _inside_ it. It lowers its metal muzzle directly over Sam. Sam shouts, wings unfurl, but not fast enough. The wolf swallows him whole. It shudders. A pair of enormous wings peel out of the metal of its back and spread out to fill the great hall.

Clint stares. He understands.

 _They_ are the weapons left in Midgard. Forged in misery and tempered in battle, augmented by magic and science. _They_ are Loki’s secret stash. The Avengers.

 _And all I must do is assemble you,_ Loki whispers.

The huge wolf is snapping at Natasha. She jumps out of the way, rolls to her feet. “ _Clint_ ,” she shouts. He can’t hear what she’s saying, not with an aid missing and all the noise in the room. He doesn’t need to hear it to know what she’s asking him to do.

But the fact is, he can’t stop this. This started back in the 40s. This has been going on for almost a century. This is why they’ve suffered, why they fought. Because Loki needed weapons in hidden Midgard. Because he knew one day he would be imprisoned, and no power on Asgard would set him free. This moment is something like destiny, but Loki made it. Wove it and set it over them like a net. He can’t fight this any more than he could fight being born. He is nothing; small, shackled, and afraid.

Steve heaves James off Thor and James goes staggering back. He hits the wall near Loki and bounces off, turning back to Steve. He shucks off his jacket like a street fighter and starts back toward Thor, who’s come staggering up to his feet. But the wolf snaps at Thor, huge jaws wide to swallow him whole. In the next instant the wolf gets an eye-full of repulser ray and it jerks back and then lunges forward and devours Tony too. There’s a crackling like static. The air feels thick. Lightning chases itself across the metal surface of the wolf’s hide. Its eyes flare the yellow-white of Tony’s repulsers and subside again. It rumbles low now, like an engine.

James stumbles back from it, staring.

“Bucky,” Steve cries, panting, “Bucky, get out of here!”

The wolf turns its head toward the noise, opens its mouth.

“No!” James shouts. “ _Look out!_ ”

But it doesn’t matter. It swallows Steve, and shudders and grows again. Shining metal wraps like ribbons around the creature’s midsection. It’s teeth get longer. Claws cut into the stonework floor.

_All your friends safe._

Loki smiles at him. He steps down from his cell and the great wolf breathes out a gust of hot, metallic breath. Natasha presses her back against the wall. Her eyes are huge and fixed on James, and James is staring back at her. Staring at her like he knows who she is, like there’s something awful about that.

_All of them locked inside the wolf._

_This will be my gift to you, Clint Barton. You will be my right hand and carry out my will with this weapon. You will bring order where there is none. You will be able to protect them. It is everything you ever wanted._

The wolf swings its head toward Natasha.

 _Go on, Avenger,_ Loki tells him, _assemble._

 

And that’s when Clint realizes it's easy. He realizes that he's been afraid and hurting and being hurt his whole life. He realizes that it's pointless, trying to protect the people around him. That the schemes of beings like Loki make it pointless, futile. He realizes that it doesn't matter what he does, not really. And he's tired of trying anyway. He's tired and all he has to do stop. So he does.

He lowers his bow, so glad to put it down. Even the relaxation of his overstretched muscles causes pain. He turns to Natasha. She’s still staring at James, her eyes are bright, glassy. Her mouth moves and Clint sees, he could not possibly have heard, her say his name. She is on the floor and close to him now, like the two of them fell down together. It is easy. All Clint has to do is go.

He crosses the broken floor, beneath the muzzle of the giant mechanical wolf. He kneels down among the spilled ordinance of James’ jacket and meets James’ eyes. James’ hand closes over his. He works something cold onto Clint’s fingers and Clint makes a fist to settle it in place. 

Clint looks at Natasha. “You okay?” he asks.

“Are you?”

He smiles. It takes no effort. Comes naturally. “I am now.”

She grins. He takes her by the arm as if hauling her to her feet, but he’s not pulling her anywhere. As if she would ever allow it. Instead, they move together, Clint turns on the spot, using the momentum to power his punch. 

"Actually," Clint shouts as the brass knuckles connect with a _crunch_ on the side of Loki’s head and send him staggering. "You don't know-" Nat follows with a kick that lands square in the middle of Loki's chest "-a god damned thing about what I want."

Clint follows up with another punch. Loki goes backward, stumbling, into the cell.

James twists, scrambling upright, to wrench the handle on the door frame. The air shimmers golden and then is still and solid again.

For a moment nothing moves. Loki lies on the floor of his cell, and Clint thinks he might be out cold. James and Nat and Clint all stand still. Then the great metal wolf starts to come apart. The overlapping metal strips come unspooled like an over-used spring, and sag open in the middle, the jaw drops off. Then the whole thing falls down with a crash. When the dust clears, Sam is pushing himself up and pulling Tony out of the twisted metal as he does. Bruce, covered in dust and naked, is scrambling to his feet, saying, _Oh god, I’m sorry, did anyone get hurt?_ Thor is picking himself up, coughing, and looking around as if dazed. Nat rushes forward. James catches Clint by the shoulder.

“How long?” he asks. “How long was he in your head?”

“I don’t know.” The therapy he couldn’t bear to go to, the constant uncertainty about which thoughts were his and which were not. “Maybe always,” Clint answers.

James frowns. He sighs. He smiles, and Clint can see how he makes himself do it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. But if you… if you ever…”

“That was real. That was me.”

It’s probably not the best time, but Clint’s bad at relationships. So he kisses James. Even though the world is chaotic and uncertain and one day Clint might be a weakness for him. Even though this thing they have is probably going to end in tears and the smart thing would be not to even try. But James pulls him close and Clint kisses him again. Because stupid. Because terrible at everything. Because _Clint Barton: in love._


	17. Epilogue

"So," Steve says softly when they're sitting together in the weird sky-ship that's taking them over the rainbow bridge to the clockwork room that Steve says is where the gate home will be. "So you're… you're stepping out with Clint, huh?"

They're flying through a psychedelic viking world, and Steve wants to know who James is dating. Of course. "Yeah," he says. He watches the smile spread over Steve's face and something knotted in his chest eases up just a little. 

"Good," Steve whispers. "Good. He's. He could use someone good in his life."

James smiles. "Well. That makes two of us."

The boat goes bumping along, and there's something about Steve's expression that's gone from pleased to heartbreaking.

"What?" James says. "You look like somebody told you the serum's gonna wear off in two days."

Steve catches his bottom lip between his teeth and worries it for a second. "You… you're coming home, right?" he asks at last.

James looks down at the wood between his feet. "I'm going back to Barton Farm," he says quietly. "But. You could… maybe you could come visit."

"Barton Farm? Is that what it's called?"

"Well," James says, " _I_ call it Fort Asshole, but don't tell Clint."

Steve laughs. "I will definitely come visit Fort Asshole," he says.

James grins. "I hope you like eggs."


End file.
